AI faces ground reality in US

New Delhi: With not many takers for the non-stop Mumbai- and Delhi-New York daily flights, Air India (AI) is parking its new Boeing 777 for over 12 hours at the US airport everyday.
“The airline’s decision to park the brand new aircraft, which arrives in New York early morning and takes off on return journey at 10pm the same day, for so many hours has stunned many,” a senior airline officer said.
“Keeping an aircraft idle for such a long time is considered suicidal in aviation industry,” an airline source said.
Air India spokesman Jitender Bhargava, however, reasoned, “There is no option (but to park the aircraft in the US). Parking and route navigation fees at Indian airports are much higher than anywhere in the world.”
Bhargava agreed that the airline had a poor load factor, but said, “The load factor in US-bound flights is around 160 passengers everyday, which is quite good considering the prevailing market situation,” he said.
To offset the high operational cost, Air India tried to launch a daytime Toronto flight sometime ago but manpower shortage forced it to shelve the plan. “Starting such a flight would require more manpower in New York, which is not possible,” another airline official said. Air India has already stopped its US-bound flights from Kolkata and Ahmedabad, which were launched with great fanfare three months ago, due to a steep hike in operational cost.
19/11/08 Yogesh Kumar/Daily News & Analysis

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Categories: Air India - International Nov 2008, Airports Nov 2008, Foreign Nov 2008, NACIL Nov 2008