New Delhi - India is the fastest growing aviation market across the world but also boasts of a creaky airport infrastructure. Though we have managed to build showpiece airports with the help of private developers in our major metros, there is a serious capacity constraint already at Mumbai and may soon also be seen at Chennai airport.
A country where majority of fights still originate in the metros and which is eyeing double-digit traffic growth in the months to come may be constrained by lack of capacity at its major airports unless urgent steps are taken to correct this anomaly.
Sample this: In July, GoAir created a record of sorts, by reporting on-time performance below 50 percent for flights from Mumbai airport. This means at least every second flight (sometimes more) of the airline from Mumbai was delayed during the month. This is the worst on-time performance of any major Indian airline in the recent memory.
But GoAir is not alone. Here's another statistic. According to DGCA data for July, the best OTP from Mumbai airport was clocked by SpiceJet at a mere 63%. So, the best a passenger can hope for, if she is taking a domestic flight to or from Mumbai, is this: only two in three flights will be on time, and sometimes not even every second flight will be on time.
How much of this is the fault of an individual airline is debatable but it is clear that airport infrastructure at Mumbai is bursting at the seams.
Air India managed OTP of just 56.7 percent from Mumbai in July, market leader IndiGo was lower with 55.7 percent and Jet Airways-JetLite combined were at 60.6 percent while Vistara was at 60.9 percent.
Compare this with operations of the same airlines from other metro airports: except Air India, every other domestic airline got over 80 percent OTP at Delhi. And except GoAir, every other airline had well over 80 percent on-time performance at Bangalore. At no other major airport in the country is a flight taking off on time such a difficult proposition - it becomes next to impossible at Mumbai.
22/08/16 Sindhu Bhattacharya/First Post
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A country where majority of fights still originate in the metros and which is eyeing double-digit traffic growth in the months to come may be constrained by lack of capacity at its major airports unless urgent steps are taken to correct this anomaly.
Sample this: In July, GoAir created a record of sorts, by reporting on-time performance below 50 percent for flights from Mumbai airport. This means at least every second flight (sometimes more) of the airline from Mumbai was delayed during the month. This is the worst on-time performance of any major Indian airline in the recent memory.
But GoAir is not alone. Here's another statistic. According to DGCA data for July, the best OTP from Mumbai airport was clocked by SpiceJet at a mere 63%. So, the best a passenger can hope for, if she is taking a domestic flight to or from Mumbai, is this: only two in three flights will be on time, and sometimes not even every second flight will be on time.
How much of this is the fault of an individual airline is debatable but it is clear that airport infrastructure at Mumbai is bursting at the seams.
Air India managed OTP of just 56.7 percent from Mumbai in July, market leader IndiGo was lower with 55.7 percent and Jet Airways-JetLite combined were at 60.6 percent while Vistara was at 60.9 percent.
Compare this with operations of the same airlines from other metro airports: except Air India, every other domestic airline got over 80 percent OTP at Delhi. And except GoAir, every other airline had well over 80 percent on-time performance at Bangalore. At no other major airport in the country is a flight taking off on time such a difficult proposition - it becomes next to impossible at Mumbai.
22/08/16 Sindhu Bhattacharya/First Post
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