Jet cuts seats on Chennai-Hyd sector

Chennai: Combining of schedules and cutting down capacity seems to be the order of the day as airlines struggle to weather the current crisis in the domestic aviation sector.
The trend that started in the Chennai-Bangalore sector is being experimented in the Chennai-Hyderabad sector also. Jet Airways recently pulled out one of its wide-bodied aircraft and replaced it with a smaller ATR which has just 40 or 70 seats.
Now, all three Jet services between Chennai and Hyderabad are operated with smaller aircraft.
The move has considerably reduced the capacity in the sector. Only Indian and Deccan fly wide-bodied aircraft to Hyderabad. But, these airlines fly just twice a day. Of the nine daily flights to the Andhra Pradesh capital from Chennai, seven involve low-capacity ATRs. Kingfisher Airlines, which has the most number of services — four in a day — operates only ATRs. SpiceJet and Go Air have cancelled operations. Industry sources said that this was part of the airlines' efforts to cut costs and rationalise operations.
However, Jet Airways refused to acknowledge that reducing capacity was the rationale behind withdrawing wide-bodied aircraft from the sector.
04/08/08 Times of India

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Categories: Jet Airways Aug 2008