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The Ministry of Civil Aviation has imposed a cut in peak and non-peak hour slots at the Mumbai airport after repeated complaints of flight delays. This has caused airlines to have to cancel their flights with almost immediate effect. On Time Performance is a contentious topic in the Indian skies with incidents of accusations and counter-accusations including suspensions of employees in the past.
However, buffered blocking times and increased ground times, which were the previous tricks to maintain high on-time performance, fail in current times.
For a private airport like Mumbai, the terminal and apron are controlled and operated by the airport operator, while the airspace is controlled by the Airports Authority of India. While it may be in the interest of operators to add flights, the manpower and means to handle them may not always be available to the AAI, leading to the current situation in which the ministry has intervened.
Why was this done?
Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) is the world’s busiest single-runway airport and the country’s second busiest. The airport has been on the receiving end of recurring delays with passengers complaining of being inside the plane waiting for clearances and, in some cases, late arrivals of incoming planes. In December, for example, IndiGo made 74.5% of its departures on time in Delhi, while only 44% in Mumbai.
Some of the delays are a result of weather problems delaying incoming flights and a sudden increase in arrivals affecting subsequent departures after some time.
The ministry has also analyzed waiting time and its impact on fuel consumption, which generates additional costs.
From the passengers’ perspective, since these delays are beyond the airline’s control, they are not entitled to any compensation.
What has been done?
Airlines have been asked to cancel flights to ensure departures fit within revised approved movements.
High Intensity Runway Operations (HIRO) times have been revised to three groups instead of the previous two. HIRO hours will be from 08:00 to 11:00, from 17:00 to 20:00 and from 21:15 to 23:15, compared to the previous schedules, two intervals from 08:00 to 11:00 and from 17:00 to 20:00. Track movements will be reduced from 46 to 44 during these hours. During the rest of the hours, movements are reduced from 44 to 42 as the maximum allowed movements.
This would mean a reduction of 2 movements or 1 departure and 1 arrival per hour, and the hit would be borne proportionally by all airlines. Some, like Akasa Air, were quick to cancel flights and reported the same, while a look at IndiGo’s booking engine shows cancellations being made on metro routes. Updates from other operators are expected.
Data obtained from Cirium, an aviation analytics company, exclusively for this article, shows that there are 2,435 weekly domestic departures from Mumbai. IndiGo leads the pack with 46% of these departures, while Air India follows with 19% and Vistara follows with 18%. Mumbai-based Akasa Air has an 8% stake.
Overall, the cancellations could mean a 3-6% drop in departures from Mumbai, which will be restricted to domestic sectors as airlines would not restrict international services.
What is the impact of this decision?
The impact of this decision is multiple. From an airline’s perspective, cancellations with immediate effect mean rebooking passengers on other flights, other airlines, or processing cancellations and refunds. The canceled flights would mean a decrease in the rotation of the planes, which will have to be deployed elsewhere in a shorter period of time. This would mean extra efforts to sell seats at the last minute, a not-so-happy proposition.
From a passenger perspective, a rebooking can be costly and a general reduction in capacity with immediate effect would mean the possibility of an increase in fares. This also affects the airport operator as there is a loss of revenue due to lower movements and fewer passengers.
However, all of this is done to improve passenger comfort and help improve operations and on-time performance. Will the reduction help maintain OTP, improve operations and mitigate the cascading effect? Time will tell. The impact is also being felt by non-regular operators, who are seeing a drastic cut in the spaces available for operations. The convenience of having a private jet is being denied.
At the end of March we will move to daylight saving time, one of the busiest times for Indian aviation. Airlines have already announced flights to summer destinations like Srinagar from Mumbai. Will Mumbaikars end up shelling out additional costs to travel with reduced flights? All eyes are now on the capacity that will be added by the Navi Mumbai airport, which will be available early next year.