How bad is BOM in July?
 

I'm considering a work trip to India for a week or so in July. I need to spend some time in Ahmedabad, and some time in Bengaluru. Usually I fly in to BOM for my India trips, but this time it turns out I will not need to attend to anything in Mumbai. All the news reports I hear every year about the disruption of transportation (including flights) in Mumbai during the most intense periods of rainfall has me thinking that I should maybe fly in and out of another city instead. Considering flying in and out of BLR (seems most convenient, many options) or AMD (less convenient, fewer options, also seems more expensive). An open jaw type itinerary like flying into AMD and out of BLR seems doable but more expensive... Or I could consider DEL, I suppose, presuming that it is not affected too much by the monsoons.

Am I being too cautious? Would it be OK in general to fly in and out of BOM as the base? The thing is, I'd be loth to lose even 1 day out of the short trip if there are weather-related disruptions. And I'm assuming Bengaluru is generally better even though it'll also probably be quite rainy then. (In any case I have no choice, I have to be in Bengaluru for at least some time.)

I can absorb some level of disruption on the domestic legs - like if one flight out of BLR was delayed or canceled because of the rain and I had to get on the next one or something, that would be fine. But having the international flight coming in be disrupted would be bad, so I want to optimize reducing risk on that.

Thanks for any advice. I'm otherwise quite familiar with India, but have not really dealt with Mumbai monsoons first-hand.

Late July should be less risky than early July in Mumbai. The rains hit about June 10 on average but can be late, and they are very heavy at first.

I've had many a flight disruptions because of monsoon season in Mumbai so I would suggest its best you avoid BOM during this period. DEL is much safer during this time.

I would go for BLR... the monsoon will have established itself there by then. The more north you go, the later the rains start. The first week of the monsoon is always brutal.

Thanks, all. I'm leaning to using BLR as the point for entering and leaving India. Going through DEL seemed attractive but it looks like would actually have quite a bit more rainfall than BLR during the times of my travel.

I was on a BA flight to BOM few hours after Spicejet had overshot the main runway in 2017 due to heavy rain. Our pilot mentioned we had enough fuel to circle for for a while and managed to get us a slot for secondary runway eventually. We were over the Arabian sea for over an hour circling and when we landed it was chaos at the gates. Most international flights had diverted to HYD/BLR/AMD.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...a111c57bdd.png



That said, I've travelled often to BOM during heavy rains and its usually domestic flights that have to divert. If you don't need to be in BOM, I'd choose BLR. Better airport/lounge.
DEL is having its own issues lately with terminal and runway closure.