Fast-growing airlines grapple with problem of ‘parking full’
The Hindu
Indian airlines are set to receive nearly 1,500 aircraft over the next 7 to 12 years, but the current parking capacity at major airports like Delhi and Mumbai falls short.
Indian airlines await the delivery of almost 1,500 aircraft over the next 7 to 12 years. But at half that fleet size today, they often grapple with parking challenges for their aircraft.
Two of the biggest airports - ie, in Delhi and Mumbai - used as hub airports for flight operations by various Indian airlines as well as bases for their pilots and cabin crew, have a combined parking capacity of 364 aircraft for the close to 700 planes among them.
Recent orders of 500 aircraft by IndiGo, on top of its previous order of 480, and 470 by Air India along with a three-digit order by Akasa likely by the end of the year imply that by 2030 end, when a large chunk of these planes arrive, expansion of airport capacity including space for parking these planes will have to keep pace.
There are 233 parking stands in Delhi for narrowbody and widebody planes, according to the Aeronautical Informational Publication, and 131 for narrowbodies in Mumbai. An airline executive said that airlines such as Air India, IndiGo and Vistara that control 85% of the market are able to avail only about half the parking capacity of what they would like to have in order to be able to plan all their flights in a commercially viable manner. Delhi and Mumbai airports account for one in three domestic and international flights.
The lack of night parking stands often forces airlines to fly the last flight of the day to smaller cities such as Ahmedabad (the alternative airport for Mumbai) and Lucknow (alternative for Delhi), which are unlikely to record high seat occupancy or command airfares at those hours as high as they would on metro-to-metro flights.
“These are some of the forced measures we use; this is an additional financial burden on the airline as only the most price-sensitive customers will opt for such flights,” said an executive in the network planning team of an airline.
Alternatively, airlines also deploy their aircraft for red-eye flights (late night departure and early morning arrival) such as a three-hour-long Delhi-Chennai flight or to Gulf countries to obviate the need for parking space. The parking space is required to carry out maintenance checks that can take 2 to 3 hours, which are scheduled in the night for domestic flights because of the low passegnger demand, explained another official handling operations at an airline.
Flight AI177 will depart Bengaluru at 1.05 p.m. and arrive at London Gatwick at 7.05 p.m. (local time). From London Gatwick, flight AI178 will depart at 8.35 p.m. (local time) and arrive in Bengaluru at 10.50 a.m. (next day arrival). From Bengaluru, the flight will operate on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays.