Mumbai: In the past one month, over thirty flights operated by Air India, IndiGo and SpiceJet, most of them flying to Hyderabad, carried lower amount of fuel as compared to other flights operating similar aircraft on similar routes.
Currently, fuel calculation for a flight takes into account fuel needed to fly to the destination, taxiing, contingency, reserve and most importantly, the amount needed to fly from the scheduled destination to an alternate airport in case it’s not possible to land at the destination due to some emergency.
But the flights mentioned above operated on a progressive, environment-friendly, fuel conservation initiative: if the destination airport has at least two independent, usable runways; if the weather is good, then with certain new practices in place, experienced pilots can be allowed to operate flights that do not carry fuel to fly from the destination airport to an alternate airport. Instead the aircraft carries an additional fuel for fifteen minutes worth of low-flying.
With the initiative, IndiGo said it could save 2,100 tonnes of fuel while reducing carbon emissions by 6615 tonnes per year. Air India would save 140kgs per B777 Delhi-Hyderabad flight.
But experts caution against certain ground realities. Capt M Ranganathan, an air safety expert, said India’s airport infrastructure is too poor so airlines and the regulator shouldn’t go full throttle on this initiative yet. A senior B777 examiner pointed out that since India has only a few airports that can handle wide-bodied aircraft, it’s a tight-rope walk.
28/05/19 Manju V/Times of India
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Currently, fuel calculation for a flight takes into account fuel needed to fly to the destination, taxiing, contingency, reserve and most importantly, the amount needed to fly from the scheduled destination to an alternate airport in case it’s not possible to land at the destination due to some emergency.
But the flights mentioned above operated on a progressive, environment-friendly, fuel conservation initiative: if the destination airport has at least two independent, usable runways; if the weather is good, then with certain new practices in place, experienced pilots can be allowed to operate flights that do not carry fuel to fly from the destination airport to an alternate airport. Instead the aircraft carries an additional fuel for fifteen minutes worth of low-flying.
With the initiative, IndiGo said it could save 2,100 tonnes of fuel while reducing carbon emissions by 6615 tonnes per year. Air India would save 140kgs per B777 Delhi-Hyderabad flight.
But experts caution against certain ground realities. Capt M Ranganathan, an air safety expert, said India’s airport infrastructure is too poor so airlines and the regulator shouldn’t go full throttle on this initiative yet. A senior B777 examiner pointed out that since India has only a few airports that can handle wide-bodied aircraft, it’s a tight-rope walk.
28/05/19 Manju V/Times of India
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