High incidence of cancellations plagues frequent fliers

New Delhi: Regular fliers have a new complaint – of cancelled, rescheduled and clubbed domestic flights disturbing their business schedules.
The general manager of a major European airline in Delhi laments that till recently he had the option of taking an early morning flight operated by a private airline to Chennai and pack in a full days work.
But in the last few days things have changed, and while the carrier still offers a morning connection from the Capital to Chennai, the few hours by which the departure has been pushed back cuts into time earlier spent in doing business in South India.
With the domestic air travel market expecting to report a flat or negative growth during June, airlines are taking all possible steps, including cancelling, rescheduling and clubbing flights to minimise the impact of rising fuel prices on airlines’ bottomlines.
Official sources told Business Line that till date the airlines had cancelled 120 daily flights.
While Jet Airways announced a temporary reduction in schedules which will see a 10 per cent reduction of flight frequencies of the combined fleet of Jet and JetLite, analysts feel industry will prune capacity by up to 18-20 per cent of the almost 1,600 flights they operate daily.
JetLite will also temporarily reduce frequency on the Mumbai-Delhi sector. The reductions announced by the airline will remain in force till September 15.
Travel agents add that Air India has announced that till the end of October it will not operate a Chennai-Mumbai-Chennai flight (AI 969-970), Bangalore-Pune-Goa-Bangalore, Mumbai-Ahmedabad and Ahmedabad-Mumbai, among others.
05/07/08 Ashwini Phadnis/Business Line

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Jul 2008