Indigo, India’s largest airline and one that prides itself on reliability, suffered from significant disruption towards the end of last week.
To make matters worse, the airline has indicated that it will cancel approximately 30 flights each day through March 31. This is due to a lack of having a sufficient number of pilots to fly the published schedule.
Based on their current aircraft utilization, this translates to effectively grounding 5 aircraft. For an airline that is often cited as a case study in planning, the disruption has caught the industry by surprise. The question being asked is whether the airline will be able to deliver on the aggressive growth plans for the coming year? And if so what brought about this disruption?
An airline’s operations plan addresses the question of how to deliver the schedule. It is an exhaustive, complex and collaborative process, with key efficiency and asset utilization targets. A well-executed plan translates into cost control and high asset utilization. But any weak link in any function can affect the overall outcome – namely, schedule reliability. Items that are planned for include:
For Indigo, each of the above items has moved from simplicity towards complexity. For instance, from a uniform fleet of A320s powered by only one engine type, Indigo now flies 3 different aircraft (the ATR, the Airbus 320/320NEO and the Airbus321NEO) with 3 engine types. Predictable maintenance schedules are more complex with a mix of new aircraft purchased directly and older aircraft sourced from the secondary market. The network is more complex with a mix of 55 domestic destinations and 15 international destinations of varying stage lengths. Point-to-point flying is still the foundation but schedules have now been aligned towards maximizing connecting traffic and thus network patterns have also become complex.
Simply put: Indigo has evolved and each area of operations has become more complex.
19/02/19 CNBC TV18
To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline
To make matters worse, the airline has indicated that it will cancel approximately 30 flights each day through March 31. This is due to a lack of having a sufficient number of pilots to fly the published schedule.
Based on their current aircraft utilization, this translates to effectively grounding 5 aircraft. For an airline that is often cited as a case study in planning, the disruption has caught the industry by surprise. The question being asked is whether the airline will be able to deliver on the aggressive growth plans for the coming year? And if so what brought about this disruption?
An airline’s operations plan addresses the question of how to deliver the schedule. It is an exhaustive, complex and collaborative process, with key efficiency and asset utilization targets. A well-executed plan translates into cost control and high asset utilization. But any weak link in any function can affect the overall outcome – namely, schedule reliability. Items that are planned for include:
- Fleet availability: the number of aircraft available for flight each day
- Maintenance: scheduled maintenance based on hours and/or flight cycles
- Staffing: number of crew required for operations
- Airport constraints: such as curfews, special training requirements, slots
- Training: regulatory and company mandated training and impact on operations
- Network design: the patterns of routing aircraft
- Scenario planning: disruption planning including mitigation measures
- All of the above together enable an airline to deliver the reliability of schedule.
For Indigo, each of the above items has moved from simplicity towards complexity. For instance, from a uniform fleet of A320s powered by only one engine type, Indigo now flies 3 different aircraft (the ATR, the Airbus 320/320NEO and the Airbus321NEO) with 3 engine types. Predictable maintenance schedules are more complex with a mix of new aircraft purchased directly and older aircraft sourced from the secondary market. The network is more complex with a mix of 55 domestic destinations and 15 international destinations of varying stage lengths. Point-to-point flying is still the foundation but schedules have now been aligned towards maximizing connecting traffic and thus network patterns have also become complex.
Simply put: Indigo has evolved and each area of operations has become more complex.
19/02/19 CNBC TV18
0 comments:
Post a Comment