New Delhi, Jan. 17:
After a gap of over two decades, State-owned Air India has grounded an
entire class of Boeing-787 in its fleet. Early on Thursday following advice
from the Director-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), it grounded all six 787s in
its fleet.
While it is still too early to compute the exact financial impact of the
grounding of Boeing 787 aircraft, this move is expected to affect the fortunes
of the airline. For each day that the aircraft will remain grounded, the
airline could face a revenue loss of at least Rs 2 crore. During the
October-December 2012 quarter, Boeing 787 earned the airline Rs 172.7 crore,
including Rs 88.3 crore from domestic operations, and Rs 84.4 crore from
international operations. Sources indicated that the aircraft are likely to
remain grounded for between 3-5 days.
Incidentally in 1990, a few days after the crash of an Airbus A-320
aircraft in Bangalore, Indian Airlines grounded all the 14 Airbus aircraft in
the fleet. The grounding lasted for about nine months and cost the airline
about Rs 200 crore.
“The Boeing 787 should return to flight in the next few days or possibly
weeks. At the moment the aircraft accounts for about 2-2.5 per cent of the
flights operated daily. In the domestic sector alone Air India operates 220
flights a day of which only five are operated with the Boeing 787,” a senior
airline official said.
The combination of size in terms of number of passengers that each
Boeing 787 aircraft can carry and the fuel efficiency it provides, has made the
airline believe that the latest civilian aircraft will turn around the fortunes
of the company.
The airline has reported losses in the last few years with the Civil
Aviation Minister Ajit Singh telling Parliament that the provisional loss
incurred by Air India during 2011-12 was about Rs 7,853.94 crore. The
cumulative loss suffered by it since April 1, 2007 till March 31, 2012, was
about Rs 28,000 crore, he added.
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