Airlines may have to pay for take-off delay

Mumbai: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is planning to implement “slotting” of flights by January 2008. This means any flight that fails to take off on time will be grounded for several hours.
"A delay of 10-15 minutes is permissible but any flight delayed beyond that will be allowed to fly only in the subsequent lean period," said AK Chopra, joint deputy general, DGCA. “For instance, if a flight scheduled to take off at 8 am gets delayed by an hour, it will be allowed to fly only after the peak hour. The idea is to improve on-time performance and lessen air congestion."
What happens to passengers who are stuck in a punished flight? “Passengers will begin to avoid such carriers. That would simply force airlines to improve their on-time performance,” said Chopra.
According to directorate records, national carriers Air India and Indian and low-cost carrier Air Deccan have the most worst on-time performance. In the last year, the three managed to take off on time only on 40-50 per cent of occasions. Other domestic carriers like Kingfisher, Jet Airways, GoAir, SpiceJet and Indigo did much better with 80 per cent on-time performance.
21/08/07 Soubhik Mitra/Hindustan Times

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Categories: Airports Aug 2007, General Aviation Aug 2007