India, Feb. 15 -- Various airlines have started cancelling flights to and from the city following the Airports Authority of India's (AAI) directive to the Mumbai airport to ease runway congestion.

On Tuesday night, the ministry of civil aviation, under which the AAI comes, issued a statement saying "persistent congestion" was being caused at the Adani Group-run Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) "due to excessive slot distribution with limited time margins on behalf of the airport operator; non-adherence of the slots on behalf of the airlines and; non-scheduled operations during peak hours".

The ministry had decided to step in owing to lack of corrective action, the statement added, noting that "MIAL should take immediate actio...