Air Deccan may battle DGCA circular on seat allocation
02 May 2007
Air Deccan allows passengers to occupy any seat on boarding the plane on a first-come, first-seated basis, which reduces seating time by up to 40-45%, according to company officials. This, in turn, allows the airline to keep more of its planes in the air.
The DGCA circular makes it compulsory for all airlines to issue seat numbers to passengers before boarding and also to ensure that handicapped passengers are the first ones to be boarded on a plane and the last ones to be deplaned.
The DGCA directive, according to government officials, would also facilitate quick headcount of passengers for tallying with passenger manifest entries, as and when required. Furthermore, in the unlikely event of an aircraft accident or in the case of unlawful interference with the aircraft, the seat numbers allotted to individual passengers will assist follow-up action and investigation.
Except for a brief initial period, Air Deccan has never followed the practice of allocating seat numbers to passengers. This is line with the practice of other profitable low-cost airlines around the world, such as Ryanair Ltd and AirAsia. Such an arrangement allows low cost carriers to reduce 'turnaround time' on the ground.
A standard Airbus A320 aircraft spends about 30 minutes for maintenance checks, refueling, cleaning and boarding of the next set of passengers. Air Deccan officials say that the new norms will increase the turnaround time by at least 20 minutes and that would reduce the number of hours a plane is in the air from the company's current average of 11 hours daily.
In contrast to Air Deccan, planes of full-service carriers fly only about nine hours a day.
The move has also drawn fire from industry analysts, who point out that even a hugely successful American airline, such as South West Airlines Co has started issuing seat numbers after being in service for 25 years.
Air Deccan flies about 7.5 lakh passengers annually with a fleet of 43 planes flying 350 flights daily.
