NEW DELHI: Indian carriers keen on experimenting with newer ideas are looking at inducting wide-bodied planes, unlike the narrow-bodied planes that are traditionally flown on domestic routes. However, the government wants them to go slow, as not every major airport is equipped to deal with the increased number of flights involving wide-bodied aircraft.
Sources in the civil aviation ministry said it would formally discuss the issue with airlines shortly as they expect carriers opting for wide-bodied aircraft on heavily trafficked airports.
Jet Airways plans to introduce wide-body planes starting October 30 on the Mumbai-Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata-Delhi routes. The airline said that Airbus A330 will double Jet Airways’ current capacity on the Delhi-Kolkata-Delhi route.
Wide-bodied aircraft helps airlines fly almost double the number of passengers and it makes for a sensible and a profitable business case. But due to the lack of preferred time slots for departure and arrivals of flights across major metro airports, the plan could be a dampener.
Vistara CEO Phee Teik Yeoh said, “Domestic carriers in India will subsequently have to put in wide-bodied planes, given the lesser number of slots at big metro airports.”
SpiceJet CEO, Ajay Singh added that there is a benefit to fly wide-bodied aircraft on domestic routes given the shortage of slots on major metro airports in the country. “But we are not thinking on these lines right now. We will first see how the domestic market moves,” Singh said. At present, wide-bodied aircraft are used on domestic sectors by Air India and Jet Airways.
A senior Air India official said most of the bigger metro airports are already clogged and have to further expand their infrastructure to meet with the growing demand. India’s aviation sector is growing at an average of over 20 per cent per year since 2013.
In order to accommodate India’s growing air passenger traffic, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on October 4 approved 21 per cent more domestic flights, from 13,744 flights to 16,600 flights per week for the winter schedule that runs from the last Sunday of October to the last Sunday of March.
“Every airlines looks for a preferred slot and timing like in the morning and evening hours when more passengers fly but as there are dearth of these slots, using wide-bodied aircraft by domestic airlines will give them more passengers, in fact, double the number compared to narrow-bodied planes for a single flight, making it a more profitable business model,” said another airline official with a private carrier.
At present, Indian commercial carriers have close to 460 narrow and wide-bodied aircraft and plans are on to buy over 660 planes. The AAI has requested the DGCA to form a capacity-planning and management body with airline representatives, airport operators and air traffic control to take a call on measures to enhance runway capacity, but DGCA says that it is not possible right now, because major airports are already clogged.
The Mumbai airport, at present, is facing major operational hurdles, which is expected to be resolve in the next five years only when the new airport starts functioning.
Lack of air traffic controllers (ATCOs) is also being seen as a major bottleneck in way of expanding use of wide-bodied planes. AAI is in the process of recruiting over 2,000 ATCOs by March 2018.