High costs: Indian carriers to operate less flights

With rising costs, Indian carriers would operate 19 per cent less number of flights this winter compared to last year, though no-frill airlines would put in more flights during the busy season starting this month-end.

Full-service carriers, Air India and Jet Airways, along with their no-frill subsidiaries Alliance Air and JetLite, would operate less number of flights, while all no-frill airlines -- IndiGo, SpiceJet and GoAir, would significantly increase flights and augment capacity this season, according to the Winter Schedule of flights approved by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.

Significantly, the flight schedule of crisis-ridden Kingfisher Airlines has not been approved by aviation regulator DGCA. Kingfisher, which has declared a lockout till October 20 with its employees on strike to demand pending wages, had last year flown 2,930 flights.

In all, 10,935 departures per week have been approved, which translate into 1,562 daily departures to and from 73 airports, a DGCA official said. The total number of departures last year was 13,541, reflecting a 19 per cent drop this year.

While Air India-Alliance Air would operate 2,169 flights, compared to 2,313 last year, Jet Airways-JetLite would together fly 3,369 services compared to 3,780 in 2011, the data showed.

No-frill carrier IndiGo would operate 2,447 flights, compared to 1,879 last year, SpiceJet 2,233 compared to 2,051 and GoAir 675 as against 588. Religare's Air Mantra, a new scheduled regional airline operating in the North since July 2012, would operate 42 flights.

The busy winter season begins on October 28 and goes on until March 31. Industry sources said the full-service airlines, which have been making significant losses, were careful not to enhance capacity but match it with demand in order to prevent higher operational losses, primarily due to high fuel cost.