Airlines cut flights to battle lean season blues

New Delhi: For the first time in three years, the number of passengers flying in India saw a fall of 4 per cent in June this year.
“I have not seen such low load factors ever, even during the lean season. Nor have I seen such a huge number of ad-hoc cancellations happening everyday at most airports,” said Kamal Hingorani, vice-president, sales and marketing, SpiceJet.
Agreed an executive of another low cost carrier (LCC), “This being a low season, most carriers are getting load factors of around 50 per cent compared to 60-70 per cent earlier. With most of our flights only half occupied, it is a better option to combine two flights which are closely scheduled.”
The executive said that on an average, every airline was cancelling around six to eight flights every day.
Take the case of Delhi airport: Around 200 flights were cancelled last week. Interestingly, LCCs accounted for as much as 73 per cent of the total last minute cancellations.
IndiGo cancelled 40 flights, while Simplifly Deccan cut 50. Normally, there are no more than 15-20 cancellations a week.
According to sources, Mumbai airport also saw around 25-30 ad-hoc cancellations on a daily basis.
In the last couple of months, airlines have reworked the remaining portion of their summer schedule ending in September by cutting 10 per cent of their capacity.
Around 160 of 1600 daily flights have been cancelled for the next two to three months.
29/07/08 Anirban Chowdhury/Business Standard

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Jul 2008