Indian airlines await the delivery of nearly 1,500 aircraft over the next 7 to 12 years. But at half that fleet size today, they often grapple with parking challenges for their aircraft.
Two of the biggest airports in Delhi and Mumbai have a combined parking capacity of 364 aircraft for the nearly 700 planes, among various airlines.
Recent orders of 500 aircraft by IndiGo and 470 by Air India, along with a three-digit order by Akasa, mean that by the end of the decade, when a large chunk of these planes arrive, the expansion of airport capacity will have to keep pace with space for parking these planes.
With 233 parking stands in Delhi for narrowbody and widebody planes (according to Aeronautical Informational Publication) and 131 for narrowbodies in Mumbai, an airline executive said that airlines such as Air India, IndiGo and Vistara, that control 85% of the market share, are able to avail only about half the parking capacity of what they would like to have in order to be able to plan all their flights in a commercially viable manner.
The lack of night parking stands often forces airlines to fly the last flight of the day to smaller cities such as Ahmedabad (alternative airport for Mumbai) and Lucknow (alternative for Delhi), which are unlikely to record high seat occupancy or command as high airfares at those hours as they would on metro-to-metro flights.
“Forced measures”
“These are some of the forced measures we use and are an additional financial burden on the airline as only the most price-sensitive customers will opt for such flights,” said an executive in the network planning team of an airline.
Alternatively, airlines also deploy their aircraft for overnight flights to Gulf countries by scheduling a late-evening departure and an early-morning arrival.
Another aviation industry veteran sounded more optimistic, while acknowledging that airlines were often forced to plan flights to smaller cities in order to overcome the parking challenge at Mumbai and Delhi.
“Aircraft are meant to fly, and they should be in the air. They don’t require more than 2.5 hours of ground time for maintenance checks,” the person said.
“The parking challenge may continue to worsen as more deliveries happen in the course of this decade, and could also impact an airline’s network planning. They will continue to be forced to explore extra rotations (flying to and fro) from the main airports just to ensure they can find parking stands. The regulator (AERA) may also raise parking fees in the coming years. We may also see airlines choosing to park outside India which may not be the most optimal from a commercial or operational perspective. So, the question is whether infrastructure will develop at pace with fleet growth at important airports, and at what cost this growth will happen,” Arvind Chandrasekhar, Head of the Network and Fleet Management practice at Lufthansa Consulting told The Hindu.
On expansion mode
Several airports around the country though, are on an expansion mode. Delhi will see Indira Gandhi International airport add Terminal 4 by September 2023, and Noida International Airport in Jewar will become operational by 2024 end and provide 25 parking stands.
Mumbai is expected to get Navi Mumbai airport, and Bengaluru airport has also been fast enhancing its capacity where 92 stands for narrowbodies in 2018 have climbed to 142, and will further go up by another 56 by 2028.
Kolkata and Chennai will see new terminal buildings and Hyderabad airport will see an expansion of its terminal building along with additional infrastructure on landside and airside.
“So, the question is whether infrastructure will develop at pace with fleet growth at important airports, and at what cost this growth will happen”Arvind ChandrasekharHead of the Network and Fleet Management
