A total of 164 aircraft are grounded at various airports in India, data shared by the government in response to a question (Starred Question no 262) asked by T. R. Paarivendhar (Member of Parliament from Perambalur Lok Sabha constituency, Tamil Nadu) in the Lok Sabha – the lower house of the parliament.
Delhi has the highest number of grounded aircraft at 64, followed by Bengaluru at 27 and Mumbai at 24. Grounded Go FIRST has maximum aircraft on ground with all its 53 planes being grounded. IndiGo – which hitherto never declared the exact count of grounded aircraft has 44 of its aircraft grounded. THese 44 are parked at Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Nagpur. SpiceJet which has been under financial stress for a long time has 27 of its aircraft grounded, which is a significant percentage of total fleet for the airline.
In percentage terms, 100% of Go FIRST’s fleet is grounded, while it is 14% for IndiGo and 40% for SpiceJet!
What does it mean for the airline?
IndiGo has been at the receiving end from the Pratt & Whitney engine issues. Go FIRST blamed the engine issues for its grounding and subsequent decision to admit itself voluntarily to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency courts.
SpiceJet has time and again said that it would invest in getting more aircraft back in the air, but like many of its announcements in the past – it has not been able to live up to its announcements.
Will Go FIRST get relief from courts? How much compensation is IndiGo getting? Can the recent round of funding announcements help SpiceJet? The questions remain unanswered for now.
What does it mean for the airport?
Airports have been at the receiving end with these groundings. The bays are typically used multiple times a day to generate revenue. With groundings, it impacts the revenue generating ability of the airport. The grounded planes give far lesser revenue as compared to multiple flights using the same bay since multiple flights means charges for infrastructure, check-in, route navigation amongst others and additional passenger means revenue in terms of retail, food and beverage.
Network Thoughts
Indian aviation is going through some good times in December with significantly higher load factors and passenger numbers over pre-COVID period. The active fleet in the country is considerably lower than pre-COVID times. How does it bode for the passengers and airlines? The reduction in capacity pushes up fares which is good for the airline but bad for the passenger. Airlines, especially IndiGo, have been reporting profits. What happens if the capacity comes back?
There will be more routes, more flights and more options if the capacity is back in the skies. Starting next month anywhere between 30 to 40 planes of IndiGo will be grounded and that number could be revised upwards if news from other airlines worldwide is to be believed.
Is there a silver lining? Relatively weaker season and Air India Express’ adding flights is the silver lining for now!
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