New Delhi: The national carrier faces many hurdles, but one that pinched it hard in the past few months was a hoarding near the Mumbai airport. If Air India officials are to be believed, the airline had to 'shed' as many as 20 passengers on each of its ultra-long Mumbai-Newark flight.
The reason: the BMC had erected a massive billboard which had imposed this "load penalty" on AI. In simple terms, the aircraft had to fly light in order to ascend in time to clear this hurdle.
The Mumbai-Newark flight, which flies daily, is the longest out of Mumbai and is operated on the Boeing 777-300 extended range (ER) aircraft. Being an almost 17-hour-flight, it is filled with fuel to capacity. So, in order to clear the hoarding, AI had to offload excess weight in the form of flyers and their baggage.
"We had taken up this issue with the civic body for a long time. Finally, the billboard was removed only recently. There was a load penalty of 20 passengers on each flight," said a top AI official.
However, other sources said that the Mumbai-Newark is not always full, and that conditions like wind speed and direction too impact the 'load penalty'.
01/05/14 Times of India
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The reason: the BMC had erected a massive billboard which had imposed this "load penalty" on AI. In simple terms, the aircraft had to fly light in order to ascend in time to clear this hurdle.
The Mumbai-Newark flight, which flies daily, is the longest out of Mumbai and is operated on the Boeing 777-300 extended range (ER) aircraft. Being an almost 17-hour-flight, it is filled with fuel to capacity. So, in order to clear the hoarding, AI had to offload excess weight in the form of flyers and their baggage.
"We had taken up this issue with the civic body for a long time. Finally, the billboard was removed only recently. There was a load penalty of 20 passengers on each flight," said a top AI official.
However, other sources said that the Mumbai-Newark is not always full, and that conditions like wind speed and direction too impact the 'load penalty'.
01/05/14 Times of India
