No flights for 2 weeks,airlines lose Rs 308 cr

The first flight after a period of 14 days took off from Chandigarh on Friday. Go-Air Airlines resumed its operations with the flight to Delhi,which was on its scheduled time. The aircraft took off with a load of 90 per cent,which according to airline officials was expected as operations were resumed after such a long period.

“This is one of the peak seasons in terms of traffic volume. The operational loss due to cancellation for such a long period has certainly affected the airline revenue. Earlier,with three flights operating daily,the average load used to be 150,which has been badly hit,” lamented the sales manager of one of the airlines.  

Similar complaints came from other airlines with occupancy ranging from 70-80 per cent. “The weather on Friday was favourable for flying. But we had cancelled all flights January 15 based on the Met forecast. We are hoping that from Saturday,the weather would be fine,” said a senior official of Indian Airlines.

“The airport authority does understand the fact that the airlines are suffering from huge financial losses. It is to be realised that if the measures taken at the eleventh hour would have been adopted at appropriate time,this situation was to be certainly avoided,” said Airport Director Suneel Dutt.  

Flight operators,meanwhile,are surprised that authorities failed to act when they were aware of the Instrument Landing System (ILS) lying defunct foe nearly six months now.