New Delhi, Aug. 1: The second spate of heavy rainfall and a directive from the civil aviation ministry today prompted private airline Jet Airways to cancel 58 flights to and from Mumbai each day till Wednesday. Several other leading airlines also curtailed flights for the next two days.

Jet Airways said in its official release that it “has curtailed its Mumbai operations effective from August 1. A reliable service has been worked out whereby passengers will be accommodated on alternate flights to minimise inconvenience”. Other air carriers, too, have rescheduled flights.

The ministry’s directive advised travellers not to go to Mumbai unless it is an absolute necessity.

Today, two Jet flights scheduled from Mumbai to Calcutta were cancelled. But the two morning flights from Calcutta took off while the three evening flights to Mumbai were combined into one.

Jet also cancelled two flights on the Mumbai-Delhi route and three on the Delhi-Mumbai route. Thirty per cent of Jet’s daily flights will be affected in the next two days.

The cities to which the Jet flights have been cancelled are Calcutta, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Goa, Auranagabad, Bhopal, Bhavnagar, Kochi, Mangalore, and Calicut. The 16.40 and 10.10 Mumbai-Calcutta flights and the 13.50 and 20.20 flights from Calcutta to Mumbai have been cancelled till August 3, according to the airline website.

Indian Airlines, which operates close to 48 flights daily, could send out only 21 flights from Mumbai. Till 7 pm this evening, its flights to Indore, Bhopal and Jamnagar had not taken off, an airline spokesperson said.

The airline combined two evening flights from Calcutta to Mumbai which took off at 7.40 pm. The Indian Airlines’ morning flight to Mumbai was one of the few to take off as scheduled as was Sahara Airlines’ morning plane. Sahara, however, combined its two evening flights to Mumbai from Calcutta.

All means of transport and commutation have been limping in Mumbai since last Tuesday after the 944.2 mm of rainfall that the city recorded.

Last week, a Chicago-bound Air India Boeing aircraft with 35 passengers on board overshot a wet runway at the Mumbai airport and skidded while landing. The city’s main runway was only opened on Friday for outgoing flights.

Travel agents said many international travel plans out of Mumbai have been postponed due to the heavy rains.

Bollywood PIL

A group of film personalities will file a PIL on Wednesday protesting against the government’s its “unpreparedness” to control such a disaster. As part of the project Jaag India, filmmakers Mahesh Bhatt, Ashok Pandit, Vinta Nanda, Raman Kumar and Shashi Ranjan and actor Koel Purie will join hands with doctors from the Asian Heart Institute and Tata Memorial Hospital.

“The inaction was a human rights violation. It (the PIL) will be to assert our right to live against the government which failed to protect us,” said Pandit. “The government should be accountable to the tax-payer.”

Nanda added: “The common man... should have a right to know which disaster management cells to turn to or which numbers to call.”