Just a 20-minute delay costs airline Rs50,000

When your aircraft spends 30 minutes circling Mumbai airport, waiting for permission to land, you are not the only one drumming the cushioned arm-rest in frustration.
“A 20 minute holding pattern costs the airline around Rs50,000 in fuel costs alone,” reveals Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, CEO, Jet Airways. “This translates into an additional cost per passenger of Rs500.”
With holding time going up, especially in metros, along with spiralling prices of aviation fuel, fuel burn is pushing the break even point higher.
“Approximately 40% of airline cost is constituted by fuel alone and with increase in flight time by 5 per cent, overall increase in cost is around 2 per cent,” says Hitesh Patel,Executive Vice-President, Kingfisher Airlines. “The effective damage for the domestic airline industry in India is in excess of Rs500 crore per annum.”
The problems don’t end at fuel costs alone. The additional flying time also means that the airline has to compensate crew, apart from putting passengers up at hotels. Delays are also eating into the fixed number of flying hours allotted to pilots.
“A pilot is permitted to fly for 1,000 hours in a year. Due to congestion, their flying hours are being used up faster,” says Jitender Bhargava, Executive Director, Corporate Communications, Air India.
At a time when airlines are grappling with a pilot-crunch, such waste of flying hours is something they can ill-afford.
13/12/07 Ameya Bhise & Salil Deshpande/Daily News & Analysis

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Categories: Airports Dec 2007, General Aviation Dec 2007