Indian Airlines May Face Rs 77 Crore Weekly Extra Costs As Pak Shuts Airspace

Indian airlines are likely to face additional weekly expenses of Rs 77 crore for international flights operated from north Indian cities as the airspace curbs result in increased fuel consumption and longer flight durations.

An analysis of the number of overseas flights and back-of-the-envelope calculations based on increased flight time as well as approximate expenses by PTI showed that the additional monthly operational costs could be over Rs 306 crore.

Alternative flight path is resulting in additional flying time of up to 1.5 hours for international flights from Delhi and north Indian cities.

A senior airline industry official, who has extensive experience in the commercial side, told PTI that the additional time for a 16-hour flight to North America will be around 1.5 hours.

For 1.5 additional hours, the cost will be around Rs 29 lakh, including landing and parking charges on account of a technical halt in an airport enroute, the official said.

Similarly, the additional flight time for a 9-hour flight to Europe will be about 1.5 hours, and the extra cost will be around Rs 22.5 lakh.

In the case of Middle East flights, the additional time will be around 45 minutes, and the resultant cost will be about Rs 5 lakh, the official said.

As per the analysis, the total additional monthly expenses will be about Rs 307 crore and Rs 77 crore on a weekly basis. These figures are based on rough estimates.

Apart from higher fuel consumption, longer flying hours also pose payload and aircraft availability issues, as well as crew flying duty time limitation challenges for airlines.

On April 25, IndiGo said that around 50 international routes operated by it will require longer sectors and hence may be subject to some slight schedule adjustments.

“With the same restrictions and limited rerouting options, unfortunately, Almaty and Tashkent are outside the operational range of IndiGo’s current fleet,” it had said in a statement.

Flights to Almaty stand cancelled from April 27 until at least May 7 and to Tashkent from April 28 until May 7.

Air India, Air India Express, SpiceJet and Akasa Air have not made announcements about flight cancellations due to the airspace curbs.