Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

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nachiket
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by nachiket »

Suraj wrote:Nachiket, I saw that at BOM. Aren’t those slums EVER going to be resettled to enable that second arm to be built out ? Such a pity for an otherwise quite spectacular shakinaw airport that is BOM T2 . The runway situation is true . Until NMIA comes into service, BOM will keep extending it’s current world record for most flights served by an airport with one runway . Just another story of making things happen to incredible extents, with limited resources on our part .
I don't know if this is a simple situation of not resettling slums, because I'm not sure if the airport owned that land in the first place. Plus there is the Mithi river in the middle as well. I'd blame GVK here. How could they select this design and go ahead with it before they were confident of acquiring the land needed? They should have known how difficult acquiring slum land is in Mumbai. That is nothing new.

From that satellite image, it seems possible to use that space better if they had gone with a design within the confines of currently available land. It may not have looked as good but they could have utilized the available space more optimally. Now it neither looks as good as they'd imagined and they've lost space as well.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by dinesh_kimar »

Singha wrote:how does AI continue to run losses in such a booming domestic aviation sector?
Saar, maybe same way KSRTC is loss making , though each city bus has 130 people packed to the rafters when meant for 55. It is not abt mass appeal, but how the pie is shared.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by nachiket »

Singha wrote:how does AI continue to run losses in such a booming domestic aviation sector?
Airline business is cutthroat. A true survival of the fittest. It has felled biggies like TWA and Pan-Am and caused other giants like Continental, NWA, USAir to disappear into merges.
Simply having a lot of passengers is no guarantee for success especially in a market with a lot of competition and price wars. A PSU, especially an Indian one is simply not efficient enough to survive this and should have gone the way of Kingfisher a long time ago if not for taxpayer funded bailouts.

The best thing for everyone would be if AI's assets get sold to various private airlines who can perhaps make better use of them. Some of them are of course not going to survive this for long either.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Suraj »

nachiket is right about running airlines. AI's cost structure is way off the mark, with many more employees per aircraft than anyone else, legacy pay agreements and unionization in the way. The assets they have - in themselves - are outstanding. They have among the best slots to constrained hubs like NY JFK and London Heathrow, and even 5th freedom rights (the ability to fly paying passengers between two other countries, not to/from home country) between, something very few have. Run professionally, they can be another SIA at least. But they're not run anywhere close to professionally.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Suraj »

nachiket wrote:I don't know if this is a simple situation of not resettling slums, because I'm not sure if the airport owned that land in the first place. Plus there is the Mithi river in the middle as well. I'd blame GVK here. How could they select this design and go ahead with it before they were confident of acquiring the land needed? They should have known how difficult acquiring slum land is in Mumbai. That is nothing new.
I'm not sure whether to blame GVK. Sure the satellite/aerial pic looks nuts. But the interior is vast, spacious and very impressive. I got to sample both the regular path, and the premium flyer path, since my international flights were in bijness. The premium queue is quite excellent, and easy to handle with a 1.5year old baby in tow . The separate immigration and security lines, the shakinaw lounge and boarding experience were all excellent. Better than say, the same process in Hong Kong, where they tried to herd us into the back of a long economy class line without listening to what we were saying, boarding pass in hand. We had to wriggle our way through the mess of people at the gate, something we didn't have to deal with in BOM, where things were smooth.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by nachiket »

Suraj wrote: I'm not sure whether to blame GVK. Sure the satellite/aerial pic looks nuts. But the interior is vast, spacious and very impressive. I got to sample both the regular path, and the premium flyer path, since my international flights were in bijness. The premium queue is quite excellent, and easy to handle with a 1.5year old baby in tow . The separate immigration and security lines, the shakinaw lounge and boarding experience were all excellent. Better than say, the same process in Hong Kong, where they tried to herd us into the back of a long economy class line without listening to what we were saying, boarding pass in hand. We had to wriggle our way through the mess of people at the gate, something we didn't have to deal with in BOM, where things were smooth.
Oh no argument about the quality of what they've built. It is fantastic, especially compared with what we had earlier and the fact that they had to build it while the old terminal was operating. I was only commenting about the complete design not seeing light of day because of what I believe was faulty planning.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Suraj »

Well, considering the design and civil engineering works get cleared by the urban authorities, I would give GVK a pass here, because they did something spectacular with what they did have. It's hard to blame just one party . Many different players had to commit to doing things on a certain timeframe in order for BOM T2 to get done. There originally was to be two wings, and then later the truncated second one was to be 'temporarily'. Now I guess it's in 'permanently temporary' status...
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Singha »

Few years ago AI had 700 staff per ac
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by chola »

Suraj wrote:nachiket is right about running airlines. AI's cost structure is way off the mark, with many more employees per aircraft than anyone else, legacy pay agreements and unionization in the way. The assets they have - in themselves - are outstanding. They have among the best slots to constrained hubs like NY JFK and London Heathrow, and even 5th freedom rights (the ability to fly paying passengers between two other countries, not to/from home country) between, something very few have. Run professionally, they can be another SIA at least. But they're not run anywhere close to professionally.
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Thanks for the chart, Suraj ji. My god, I knew they were inefficient but did not know it was still that bad. They are paying two people to do the job of one compared to Singapore or Luthansa.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Suraj »

Well technically that's not a complete picture. The per-capita pay for AI's workers would be substantially lower than those of SQ or LH. Probably better stats would be employee salary cost per aircraft, as well as raw employees per aircraft data, but benchmarked only against other Indian careers, to take out income level disparities. I'll leave those figures as an investigative effort to others - I've done my share of digging.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Singha »

jet airways staff will get a 25% pay cut
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/in ... 220944.cms
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Suraj »

June 2018 and Q1 fiscal 2018-19 passenger traffic data is available on aai.aero now. Passenger traffic is Annexure 3 data.

General traffic data is here on their site

Aircraft movement is Annexure 2.

Bangalore numbers stand out. Considering April-June is the weakest quarter of traffic and tourism, Bangalore is going to report well north of 30M pax this year. DEL is well on track to hit 72-75M . BOM remains slot constrained, however its passenger growth matches its aircraft movement growth, so it seems no one's just flying in bigger planes yet. All the Kerala gateways continue to report higher international than domestic traffic, the only international airports in the country with such behavior.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Singha »

is 787 / A350 sutainable on domestic routes in india? here are some current ones

American Airlines

Chicago O’Hare ORD – CUN Cancun – Starts 4 November 2018
Chicago O’Hare ORD – DFW Dallas Ft Worth (Commenced)
Chicago O’Hare ORD – HNL Honolulu – Operates 19 December 2018-1 April 2019
Dallas Ft Worth DFW – LAX Los Angeles (Commenced)
Dallas Ft Worth DFW – SFO San Francisco – Operates 5 August 2018 – 5 January 2019

China Southern Airlines

Guangzhou CAN – CTU Chengdu (Commenced)
Guangzhou CAN – PEK Beijing (Commenced)
Guangzhou CAN – SHA Shanghai Hongqiao (Commenced)
Urumqi URC – PEK Beijing (Commenced)
Urumqi URC – KHG Kashi/Kashgar (Commenced)
Urumqi URC – ShA Shanghai Hongqiao (Commenced)

ANA All Nippon Airways

Osaka Itami ITM – CTS Sapporo Chitose (Commenced)
Tokyo Haneda HND – FUK Fukuoka
Tokyo Haneda HND – HKD Hakodate (Commenced)
Tokyo Haneda HND – HIJ Hiroshima
Tokyo Haneda HND – ISG Ishigaki (Commenced)
Tokyo Haneda HND – KOJ Kagoshima
Tokyo Haneda HND – KMJ Kumamoto
Tokyo Haneda HND – MYJ Matsuyama
Tokyo Haneda HND – KMI Miyazaki
Tokyo Haneda HND – NGS Nagasaki
Tokyo Haneda HND – OKJ Okayama
Tokyo Haneda HND – OKA Okinawa
Tokyo Haneda HND – ITM Osaka Itami
Tokyo Haneda HND – CTS Sapporo Chitose (787-9)
Tokyo Haneda HND – TAK akamatsu

United Airlines

Denver DEN – IAD Washington Dulles (Commenced) Ends?
Los Angeles LAX – IAH Houston Intercontinental (Commenced) (787-9)
San Francisco SFO – IAH Houston (Commenced) (787-9)
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Singha »

i have heard japan is only country operating B747 on short haul high density seating routes for decades now
are they slot constrained in the major airports ?
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Singha »

>>Bangalore is going to report well north of 30M pax this year

the rated capacity of T1 after the expansion is only around 22M or 24M i forgot the exact number. but it means 150% duty cycle to support 30+
it looks and feels like a railway station stand outside. security is a chokepoint at all hours now as every hour is packed with flights.

for T2 again same error of not having separate arrival and departure levels and multi storeyed car parks being repeated... delhi T3 is a short walk on belts from the multi storey car parking. no major airport has arrival and departure on same levels...
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Suraj »

It already hit 24M passengers LAST year, and is reporting a ridiculous 35% !!! growth rate for Q1 this year. At 30% for full year, thats over 31M pax for current fiscal year.

Japan was the sole operator of the 747SR . Never flown them. I did fly JAL domestic 777 between Tokyo and Osaka (HND-ITM listed above). A little to cramped for my taste. I'd rather take the Shinkansen - not much difference in time vs going to/from airport + flight time, and a lot more spacious in the train.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by nachiket »

Singha wrote:i have heard japan is only country operating B747 on short haul high density seating routes for decades now
are they slot constrained in the major airports ?
Not anymore. Both JAL and All Nippon have retired all 747's including the high density SR's. But they do use 777s on domestic routes.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by nachiket »

Singha wrote:is 787 / A350 sutainable on domestic routes in india? here are some current ones
Maybe not the A350 (it is bigger) but the 787 should be. At least on high demand routes like BOM-DEL etc. Problem is, only Air India and Jet have wide-bodies among Indian airlines. Nobody else seems to have firm plans to buy wide bodies, let alone any orders.
Edit: Apparently Vistara with a current fleet size of only 20 is buying a few 787's. Probably to start international routes.

Air India has no orders pending and all its 777s and 787s are currently used for international routes. Jet has 10 787's on order but they'll be used for international routes too I expect. They have ordered 10 787-9's compared to the smaller 787-8 that Air India uses.

Everyone is only concentrating on expanding their narrow body fleet for domestic routes. Some unbelievable numbers in that department. Spicejet has ~150 737's on order. Jet has 223 737's on order. Indigo is even more crazy. They have between 300 and 400 A320s on order. GoAir has firm orders for around 120 A320's. Others are also expanding. Everyone except AI of course.

I have no idea where all these aircraft are going to be parked. and where they are going to find slots for all the new flights. They'll probably have to lease out a significant number of these.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Suraj »

Yes the masses of 737s approach is somewhat shortsighted. I get the 'Southwest/RyanAir Model' and all the benefits of standardizing on one model. The logistical tail of multiple models is complex to manage. However, there's going to be a hard limit on just how many planes one can park and fling in the airspace at any one time, and if airlines don't use widebodies - spreading out the MRO budget between each other with a facility paid in by all if needed - they're making a mistake.

I don't think the number of aircraft itself is crazy large. Despite all the enormous traffic, the actual fleet sizes are quite small. Indigo is just 167 planes. Jet and AI are 100-120 each, SpiceJet a long way down at 58. Having 2-3 airlines with about 300-400 airframes each sounds about right. The list for Asia has the top 3 in PRC at the top:
List of largest airlines in Asia
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by nachiket »

Suraj wrote: I don't think the number of aircraft itself is crazy large. Despite all the enormous traffic, the actual fleet sizes are quite small. Indigo is just 167 planes. Jet and AI are 100-120 each, SpiceJet a long way down at 58. Having 2-3 airlines with about 300-400 airframes each sounds about right. The list for Asia has the top 3 in PRC at the top:
List of largest airlines in Asia
I meant unbelievable by current Indian standards. Not cheeni or american. Chinese per capita gdp is much higher with an equal population size and large landmass. There'll be a huge difference in fleet sizes and total passenger count.

But looking at current fleet sizes of Indian carriers, the order book is enormous. At least for narrow-bodies. The private carriers don't seem at all enthusiastic about wide-bodies and international operations. Middle-eastern and European airlines are making hay in the meantime.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Suraj »

Well, most of the Chini flights are in a geographical area not much larger than ours. Their annual passenger traffic is 550M passengers in 2017. We were at almost 150M for 2017-18. Airframe ratio and passenger traffic ratio are almost on par. Always best to have the equal area map in mind when talking distances too:
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I remain disappointed that we handed over our international traffic to the ME carriers. Unfortunately we don't have any professionally run long haul international carrier.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by nachiket »

Suraj and Singha saar, a quick search on Orbitz reveals that AI and Jet do seem to use widebodies on the DEL-BOM sector. Saw a couple of AI flights (one using a 787 and another a 777-300ER). Also a couple of Jet flights using A330.
Seem to be extended domestic legs of international flights. Like AI 349 - Shanghai-DEL-BOM using the same 787. But of course you can buy only a DEL-BOM ticket on it.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Suraj »

AI does appear to fly DEL-BOM occasionally using both 787s and at least in the past 747s, according to this. These are pure domestics, not tag ons. But all recent history for the listed flight numbers are A321s. Higher capacity than A320s, but still not a widebody. They don't appear to have enough widebodies to serve domestics anyway.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Singha »

unless DEL or MUM get developed as a transit hub like singapore, HK, incheon, dubai, abu dhabi....widebodies are not going to be filled purely on the basis of NRI or business traffic sourced/sinked into india. this we already know.

problem is we do not have a cash rich deep state backed international airline of SIA or Emirates class and both straddle the E-W route on either side. ASEAN has many E-W and trans pacific hubs in a long line from north to south. if we had a giant we could have hoped to catch a % of the EU -> ASEAN/AUS traffic that dubai has now grabbed. dubai has a insane number of flights into every corner of the world incl africa, CAR stans, south america....

we would need around 150-200 heavies and a well developed hub to match that.

even turkish airline is a big giant and istanbul a strong hub. 327 planes and 302 destinations per wiki.
Ethiopian airlines has 108.

DEL T3 has all the infra in place to be a hub, but lacks a big international carrier to climb the rung. its functioning like atlanta or dallas now - mainly domestic pax pushing the growth. same for BLR - not too many intl flights if we delete the gulf
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Singha »

what got us this far may not take us to the next rung.

domestically we need much more flights into tier2 cities (smaller versions of 737,a321 and q400/atr72) to wean people away from railways

UP for instance has hardly any notable airport other than varanasi and lucknow but a lot of rich people.... same for bihar.... a ready market of 250 mil people
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Mollick.R »

Suraj wrote:nachiket is right about running airlines. AI's cost structure is way off the mark, with many more employees per aircraft than anyone else, legacy pay agreements and unionization in the way. The assets they have - in themselves - are outstanding. They have among the best slots to constrained hubs like NY JFK and London Heathrow, and even 5th freedom rights (the ability to fly paying passengers between two other countries, not to/from home country) between, something very few have. Run professionally, they can be another SIA at least. But they're not run anywhere close to professionally.
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Sir, after a quick google I think that the data/figures are quite dated.

https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/mum ... 282425.cms

Air India has successfully reduced its air the air-craft-to-employee ratio from 300 per flight to 108, cutting it down by almost two-third in the last two years and im proving on the time its aircraft remain in Jet Airways, on the other hand, has 130 employees working towards any given flight. According to officials of the national carrier, the reduction has a direct benefit on passengers with efficiency peaking. “It has increased turn-around time for every flight and increased the number of hours an aircraft remains in the sky,“ an airline official told Mirror.
In the last two years, the airline has gradually brought down the number of employees per aircraft. “We first brought it down to 1:135 a year ago, 1:114 six months ago and now it has reached 1:108. This, however, excludes Air India's engineering and ground handling subsidiaries.
“Strategic planning and increased efficiency in manpower deployment has resulted in an improved aircraft-employee ratio of Air India. This has also helped in substantial cost savings,“ new Chairman-MD Ashwini Lohani said during his recent visit to Mumbai.
This Mumbai Mirror article dated Oct 9, 2015 says AI have cut the ratio from 300 :1 to 108 :1 if correct then this is a big step in positive direction and the ratio stands comparable (if not better) to AI's global peers.

It devil may be hidden in the statement :?: :?: :roll: :roll:
This, however, excludes Air India's engineering and ground handling subsidiaries.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Mollick.R »

https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/96330- ... raft-ratio
An apple-to-apple comparison with Air India reveals that the Indian flag carrier, having 133 aircraft in its fleet, had succeeded in reducing its aircraft-to-employee ratio to 114 only by end March 2015, down from 135 in 2014 and about half of 221 in 2012!

An October 6, 2015 report posted on Air India website had stated: "Air India has achieved a substantial decrease in its aircraft-to-employee ratio in the financial year ended March 31, 2015. While the aircraft-to-employee ratio decreased to 1:114, the employee cost of the total cost decreased by 0.22 per cent at 11.68 per cent in the financial year 2015 as compared to 12.9 per cent in 2014. The present aircraft-to-employee ratio (1:114) which is half of what existed in 2012 (1:221) showcases how efficiently and strategically Air India is using its manpower."

An Indian newspaper "Mumbai Mirror" had gone on to give even better projections.
An October 9, 2015 report of the "Mumbai Mirror" had maintained: "Air India has successfully reduced its air the air-craft-to-employee ratio from 300 per flight to 108, cutting it down by almost two-third in the last two years."

The news article from Paki news site also quotes same MM article and praises AI on same front.

Wiki page of AI says its fleet size is 118 (excluding sister concerns) & no of employee is 20956 (November 2016 figure).
This gives us a ratio of 178:1

Found a report titled as "FACT AND FIGURES" (dt April 30, 2018, PDF, 557.80 KB size,// unable to post the report directly here) from https://www.staralliance.com/web/staral ... %20figures.
This report AI fleet size is mentioned as 118 vs employee no 11912. This gives us a ratio of 101:1.

What I'm missing here ??? :?: :cry:
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by manish »

There are quite a few routes where limited number of widebodies ply domestically, most common being:
  • BOM-DEL
  • DEL-CCU
  • MAA-DEL
  • BLR-DEL
  • HYD-BOM
The last one in particular is a favourite of the spotters and enthusiasts looking to fly the B747 which is what AI puts on this rotation, operated as a domestic connector to a Middle East rotation.

While the primary motivation to put widebodies on the DOM routes has been driven by slot constraints at BOM and to a lesser extent DEL, there are a few other downsides to this.
  • Widebodies are inherently less suited for short haul flying in terms of operating economics
  • Widebodies also don't play well with large number of daily take-off/landing cycles that come with short haul ops - your yields better be high enough to cover the significantly shorter life expectancy of a wide-body doing 10 flights a day
  • Putting so many seats in one go one a route will drive down yields in the short term at least. See point above
  • Most airports in our country are geared for a narrow-body heavy operating mix. Every resource right from airspace, Terminal equipment, baggage handling systems, parking stands are all sized for this.
  • There's an argument in favour of frequency over capacity - often on business heavy routes, priority is putting one flight every hour on an A320 vs dumping 350 seats on a B777-300ER.
  • Perhaps a temporary issue but right now, no 3rd party MRO setup in India offers wide-body MRO services, simply because there's no real market outside of Air India. 9W fleet is too small and until recently they were mostly leased out to Turkish and Thai Airways
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Singha »

the 737 max-10 @ 230 pax nearly overlaps the low end of the 787 which extends upto 280-300....which was the old A300 size that indian airlines had in the famous 2+4+2 layout. its very long tube like the a340-600

787-8 which houses 242 seems viable to me on inter metro routes rather than usual 180 seater a320/737
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by nachiket »

Mollick.R wrote:
Air India has successfully reduced its air the air-craft-to-employee ratio from 300 per flight to 108, cutting it down by almost two-third in the last two years and im proving on the time its aircraft remain in Jet Airways, on the other hand, has 130 employees working towards any given flight. According to officials of the national carrier, the reduction has a direct benefit on passengers with efficiency peaking. “It has increased turn-around time for every flight and increased the number of hours an aircraft remains in the sky,“ an airline official told Mirror.
In the last two years, the airline has gradually brought down the number of employees per aircraft. “We first brought it down to 1:135 a year ago, 1:114 six months ago and now it has reached 1:108. This, however, excludes Air India's engineering and ground handling subsidiaries.
“Strategic planning and increased efficiency in manpower deployment has resulted in an improved aircraft-employee ratio of Air India. This has also helped in substantial cost savings,“ new Chairman-MD Ashwini Lohani said during his recent visit to Mumbai.
This Mumbai Mirror article dated Oct 9, 2015 says AI have cut the ratio from 300 :1 to 108 :1 if correct then this is a big step in positive direction and the ratio stands comparable (if not better) to AI's global peers.

It devil may be hidden in the statement :?: :?: :roll: :roll:
This, however, excludes Air India's engineering and ground handling subsidiaries.
We have to be wary of AI baboos indulging in Shanghai statistics. Has AI had a mass layoff to reduce the ratio by that much? If they had, we would have heard of it from the unions. Without layoffs they probably shifted employees around and changed designations to arrive at that figure. Looks good on paper but does nothing for AI's bottomline.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by arshyam »

AI used to deploy one of its 787s on the DEL-MAA route. I don't think it was connected to an international leg as it was a day time, iirc. Not sure if they still operate the same equipment these days.

DEL-MAA and DEL-BLR are sure shot candidates for the 777/350 type wide bodies in the near future. Demand, slot constraints, and the distance will demand it, even though the 787s will be cheaper to operate.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Singha »

imo 787 family will offer ideal mix of size and frequency between metros ...a step up from the 737 level but below the proper heavies of 300 seat+ category ...220-250 seats a pop ... they could change some of 737/a321 orders to 787 and a321neo i hope...there are 100s in pipeline

there used to be plenty of 757 and 767 on american inter metro routes for this reason only....the 787 is the successor to the 767

20% more seats than 180 max current loads and similar turnaround time / buses / parking width
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by nachiket »

arshyam wrote: DEL-MAA and DEL-BLR are sure shot candidates for the 777/350 type wide bodies in the near future. Demand, slot constraints, and the distance will demand it, even though the 787s will be cheaper to operate.
That's the problem isn't it. No 777s or A350s are on order by any Indian airline. They seem to be betting on Airport capacity expanding enough in the near future to let them have the ideal scenario of more frequent flights using their rapidly expanding narrow-body fleet. Might be in for a nasty surprise.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by manish »

Singha wrote:the 737 max-10 @ 230 pax nearly overlaps the low end of the 787 which extends upto 280-300....which was the old A300 size that indian airlines had in the famous 2+4+2 layout. its very long tube like the a340-600

787-8 which houses 242 seems viable to me on inter metro routes rather than usual 180 seater a320/737
The 737-900ER (like the Airbus 321) has been flying around in our skies for years now. If I remember correctly, SpiceJet puts 210+ seats on theirs. The first A321neo for IndiGo is also reportedly already entered final assembly, and they may very well have ~230 seats in all economy config.

The problem with such long 'toothpaste tubes' is the turnaround time at airports and the pax experience during boarding/de-boarding. One of the reasons why the erstwhile 757-300 didn't sell too well.

The much hyped 797/NMA from Boeing is supposed to attack this very segment with an optimised twin-aisle/wide-body design which will avoid many of the above mentioned issues with minimal compromise on fuel burn etc. Let's see.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Singha »

That way 787 twin aisle is good
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Singha »

an article on jet airways says it uses its 737 for some 15 hrs daily but its A330 fly only 4.5 hrs a day. they are trying to use them more.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Mort Walker »

nachiket wrote:
arshyam wrote: DEL-MAA and DEL-BLR are sure shot candidates for the 777/350 type wide bodies in the near future. Demand, slot constraints, and the distance will demand it, even though the 787s will be cheaper to operate.
That's the problem isn't it. No 777s or A350s are on order by any Indian airline. They seem to be betting on Airport capacity expanding enough in the near future to let them have the ideal scenario of more frequent flights using their rapidly expanding narrow-body fleet. Might be in for a nasty surprise.
Very apt point. For the increase in passenger traffic, either use more wide body planes or expand airports. I suspect it will have to be a combination of both. Airport runway expansion will allow for more air cargo as India is the world’s largest producer of fruits and vegetables and they need to move quickly. This is a huge export opportunity.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by arshyam »

nachiket wrote:
arshyam wrote: DEL-MAA and DEL-BLR are sure shot candidates for the 777/350 type wide bodies in the near future. Demand, slot constraints, and the distance will demand it, even though the 787s will be cheaper to operate.
That's the problem isn't it. No 777s or A350s are on order by any Indian airline. They seem to be betting on Airport capacity expanding enough in the near future to let them have the ideal scenario of more frequent flights using their rapidly expanding narrow-body fleet. Might be in for a nasty surprise.
Yeah - I can't understand it. Most of our major airports with the exception of DEL make do with a single runway. Even when there is an additional runway, they are not utilized well: BOM has issues with coordination, and MAA is limited by a river flowing under the second runway, so it can be used only in one direction. I am not sure if CCU uses both. Point is, we do poorly on airside infra - most of the investments into airports go toward shiny terminals, which won't be of much use unless the airside capacity grows to match.

All this leads to the conclusion that bigger planes will pay off better in the long term as slots are going to be hard to come by (BOM has exhausted most of its daytime slots already). New airports with open slots are the only new bets, but even here, BLR and HYD have been content with a single runway so far (BLR's second runway looks a way off from completion). We can't keep building new airports for the other cities and expect them to generate demand immediately - the old warhorses with all their constraints aren't going anywhere. UDAN has opened a lot of new routes, but they aren't going to absorb much when compared to the inter-metro routes.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by Singha »

larger bodies like a321neo/787 can keep flying inter metro p2p routes full at all hours. there is lot of demand from the top6 airports.
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Re: Civil Aviation Development & Discussion

Post by arshyam »

arshyam wrote:AI used to deploy one of its 787s on the DEL-MAA route. I don't think it was connected to an international leg as it was a day time, iirc. Not sure if they still operate the same equipment these days.

DEL-MAA and DEL-BLR are sure shot candidates for the 777/350 type wide bodies in the near future. Demand, slot constraints, and the distance will demand it, even though the 787s will be cheaper to operate.
Looks like AI already tried it last year

Air India to launch Boeing 777 flights on Delhi-Chennai
NEW DELHI: Air India has said that they will operate bigger Boeing 777 aircraft between Delhi and Chennai sector starting today to clear the summer rush during the holiday months.

“From today, our evening flight between Delhi and Chennai would be operated by a 300-seater Boeing 777. The flight will leave for Chennai in the evening and return to Delhi late in the night. We hope to fill our planes due to the summer travel rush that starts now,” said a senior Air India official, who did not want to be identified.

With slots becoming a constraint at Indian airports, Indian carriers are launching bigger aircraft to carry more number of passengers per flight.

Air India also feels that the flight with a Boeing 777 aircraft will make money for them, as they will be able to fill large number of its seats in the flight.
Maybe they did it only for the summer rush, but I expect this will become quite regular going forward.
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