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The ministry of civil aviation enforced a cut in slots in peak and non-peak hours at Mumbai airport after repeated complaints of flight delays. This has led to airlines having to cancel their flights with almost immediate effect. On Time Performance is a contentious issue in Indian skies with incidences of accusations and counter-accusations including suspension of employees in the past.
However, buffered block times and increased ground times – which were the earlier tricks of maintaining 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 those may not always be available for the AAI leading to the current situation where the ministry has stepped in.
Why was this done?
Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) is the world’s busiest single runway airport and the second busiest in the country. The airport has been at the receiving end due to recurring delays with passengers complaining of being inside the aircraft awaiting clearances and in some cases late arrival of incoming aircraft. In December for example, IndiGo had 74.5% of its departures on time at Delhi, while it was only 44% at Mumbai.
Some of the delays are consequential due to weather issues delaying inbound flights and a sudden spurt in arrivals which impact consequential departures after a while.
The ministry has also taken a look at the holding time and its impact on fuel consumption leading to additional cost.
From a passenger perspective, since these delays are beyond the control of the airline, they are not eligible for any compensation.
What has been done?
Airlines have been asked to cancel the flights to ensure that the departures are in line with the revised approved movements.
The High Intensity Runway Operations (HIRO) timings have been revised to three buckets instead of the earlier two. The HIRO time will be 0800 to 1100, 1700 – 2000 and 2115 to 2315 hours, from the earlier times two buckets of 0800 to 1100 and 1700 to 2000. The runway movements are being reduced from 46 to 44 during these hours. During the other hours, the movements are reduced from 44 to 42 as the maximum permissible movements.
This would mean a reduction of 2 movements or 1 departure and 1 arrival in each hour, with the hit being taken by all airlines proportionately. Some like Akasa Air have been quick to cancel the flights and inform about the same while a look at IndiGo’s booking engine shows cancellations being undertaken on metro routes. Updates from other carriers are awaited.
Data obtained from Cirium – an aviation analytics company, exclusively for this article shows that there are 2435 weekly domestic departures from Mumbai. IndiGo leads the pack with 46% of these departures while Air India comes in next with 19% while Vistara follows at 18%. Mumbai headquartered Akasa Air has an 8% share.
Overall the cancellations could mean a drop of anywhere between 3% to 6% of departures from Mumbai, which will be restricted to domestic sectors since airlines would not curtail international services.
What is the impact of this decision?
The impact of this decision is multifold. From an airline perspective, cancellations with immediate effect mean reaccommodation passengers on other flights, other airlines or processing cancellations and refunds. The cancelled flights would mean slack in aircraft rotations which need to be deployed somewhere else at a shorter notice. 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 a possibility of an increase in fares. This also impacts the airport operator as there is a revenue loss due to lesser movements and fewer passengers.
However, all of this is being done for improvement of passenger comfort and helping improve operations and the On Time Performance. Will the reduction help maintain OTP, improve operations and mitigate the cascading effect? Time will tell. The impact is being felt by non-scheduled operators too who are seeing a drastic cut in available slots for operations. The convenience of having a private jet is being negated.
End of March, we will move to the Summer schedule, one of the peakest times in Indian aviation. Airlines have already announced flights to summer destinations like Srinagar from Mumbai. Will Mumbaikars end up shelling out extra cost to travel with the reduced flights? All eyes are now on the capacity that Navi Mumbai airport will add, which will come up early next year.