Airlines’ cost -cutting put basic amenities at stake

New Delhi: Faced with the huge surge in operating costs, due to rising input costs, many of the airlines in India and over the world are getting down to the drawing board to find every little nook and cranny that they can squeeze excess expenditurefrom.
Apart from the obvious moves like lay-off and lowered appraisals for employees, the airlines are looking deep into nibbling at amenities, ‘even some basic amenities’, to pare operational expenses. The domestic airlines have already decided to prune routes by 20% and have hangered gas-guzzler planes,replacing them with fuel-efficient ones or smaller turboprops. This form of cost cutting by cutting back on the perks of flying was first started by American airlines but has steadfastly moved to the rest of the world. Airlines Companies in India were in any case battling lower growth rates, the fuel hike has only worsened it.
Through 2006-07, the number of passengers flying the domestic routes rose 38% over the previous year. In 2007-08, with fares rising, the growth rate dropped to 22%. Many domestic airlines have already started asking their logistics and ground-handling agencies to fill the aircraft’s water tank to only 60% of capacity, though none of them are ready to admit it.
And that’s not all. The airlines are doing whatever they can to reduce the weight of the aircraft and everything that is not necessary is losing a place on most of the full service carriers. “We have pulled out unused ovens, changed metal food carts with lighter fibre ones and replaced glassware with plastics weight,” one official with a premier full service carrier in the country said.
16/06/08 Shauvik Ghosh/Financial Express

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Jun 2008