Air India planning to increase daily utilisation of its aircraft: Official

According to Air India Director of Finance Vinod Hejmadi the company is planning to use its aircraft for at least half hour more per day. “Our daily utilisation of airplanes is not very good. It’s around 10 and a half hours on Airbus route (domestic routes).”

“We can increase it by half an hour...Even in the international routes, our 787s fly around 12 and a half hours per day. We can increase it to 13 and half hours,” he said at CAPA India Aviation Summit 2019.

The government has been working on ways to revive the fortunes of Air India, which is estimated to have a debt burden of Rs 55,000 crore.

Hejmadi further said the national carrier would now focus again on US market by increasing its frequencies, indicating a shift of focus from Europe.

“On the international front, we concentrated on Europe a year ago. In fact, we started destinations to Scandinavia, Milan, Vienna, Madrid...We are redirecting our vision on the North America route,” Hejmadi said.

Delhi-based low cost airline IndiGo said on Tuesday that it plans to curtail about 30 flights a day. The airline said that it is “slightly adjusting its flight schedule in the coming days by approximately 30 flights per day. These adjustments amount to 1-2 per cent of the originally planned number of flights.” The statement is, however, silent on for how long these slight adjustments will be in place or what the reasons for the adjustments are. The statement adds this is being done to stabilise the network and operations.