Cost-cutting in cockpit & toilets

Mumbai: Airlines struggling to stay afloat amid rising oil prices are looking at every nook and toilet to prune fuel bills.
Passengers will have to get used to some mid-air turbulence with the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation projecting a loss of over $2 billion for the Indian aviation industry in 2008-09.
For starters, airlines on long-haul international flights are making brief fuelling stopovers, or even a detour to the Gulf, countries of the erstwhile Soviet Union or Iran, where aviation turbine fuel (ATF) costs less.
Jet Airways and Air India are using a sophisticated mechanism by which a flight can carry the lowest possible fuel.
Many Indian airlines running international flights have on board a computer programme that shows fuel costs in various locations and recommends the pilot to tank up more at a cheaper location and optimise fleet utilisation.
The cost-cutting measures have moved out of the cockpit. Passengers wishing to read magazines or newspapers should preferably carry their own as many of the airlines are doing away with them, at least in the economy class. And, use the toilet as sparingly as possible.
Though airline flushes don’t use water, a single flush at 30,000ft requires enough fuel to power a car for 10km. Most airlines agreed that fewer visits to the toilets by passengers would cut fuel bills. But desperate measures like a formal policy to discourage toilet usage on board, a la some Chinese airlines or stripping paint off aircraft surfaces to reduce flight load like a few American ones, are not on the horizon.
What is a priority, however, is getting rid of every ounce of extra flab on board to earn the extra mile.
30/06/08 Samyabrata Ray Goswami/The Telegraph

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Jul 2008