Fly simply

The strike by private airlines may have been called off but the problems haven't gone away. We get experts to tell us what ails the industry and how it can be set right
The aviation industry is in the soup for pretty much the same reasons that people are: lack of discipline, high spending, especially on frills, and resultant debts.
An officer with the Airports Authority of India said that if airlines are punctual and stick to schedules, they'd end up saving huge amounts on fuel cost.
"A flight delay has a cascading effect on the cost," he said. "If your take-off is delayed, you will end up burning more fuel because you won't get parking at the destination." According to him, only two airlines in India are punctual Indigo with 96 per cent punctuality and Paramount with 93 per cent.
B C Thiruvengadam, a leading advocate in the civil aviation sector, attributes the current situation to the absence of a regulator.
"When you have privatised a sector, you need a market regulator to overview tariff structure," he said. "In the absence of a regulator, there is no transparency in fares."
Captain G R Gopinath, the pioneer of low-cost aviation, agrees that unnecessarily high fares are to blame for dwindling air passengers.
"In the given situation, we have to look at innovative methods to attract passengers, otherwise nobody will be able to save the aviation industry. And the government's bailout package will be of little help," said Captain Gopinath.
Some aviation experts like Devesh Agarwal feel that airlines could cut down on the cost of food and other frills on board the aircraft without compromising on quality.
03/08/09 B V Shiva Shankar/MiD DAY

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Aug 2009