Airlines may suspend flights on unviable routes

Mumbai: Jet Airways, Kingfisher, Spicejet and other airlines are considering temporary suspension of flights on some of the financially unviable routes as also a reduction of frequency and air routes to cut losses after oil companies raised the prices of aviation turbine fuel.

"We will look at unviable routes and see if we can temporarily suspend some of the services," Ajay Singh, a director of low-cost carrier SpiceJet said after meeting the civil aviation secretary.

State-run Indian airlines, which said it could double losses in 2008-09 from Rs4,000 crore in the previous year, on account of rising fuel costs, is also expected to announce a hike in fares.

 "I have been informally told by airlines that they would like to prune their services. Frequency may be decreased," said civil aviation minister Praful Patel today, while expressing grave concern about the rising prices of jet fuel. "Airlines may choose to fly less rather than fly more and lose more," he added.

Airlines have already started rationalisation of flights on the short haul routes and will soon extend it to the long haul ones.

Spice Jet has cancelled around 15-16 short haul flights in the last two months and will look at pulling out long haul flights soon.

"Our rationalisation will spread across the entire network and we will stop all operations which are not giving us proper yields. This might include metro routes as well," said a Spice Jet spokesman.

Last month, the Mumbai-based low-cost carrier Go Air cut operations to Chennai.

"ATF accounts for more than 45 per cent of the airline's costs and this component will increase even more. The prices of ATF have been increasing much more than other petroleum products. In a week, Patel said, adding ''We will have to look at various steps for relief."

Public sector oil companies have announced an increase of more than an 18 per cent in the prices of aviation turbine fuel (ATF).

This has resulted in an increase of 8-10 per cent in all ticket fares, with airlines such as Jet Airways and Kingfisher announcing an increase of Rs300 for short-haul sectors (under 750 km) and Rs550 for long-haul sectors (over 750 km).

The respective surcharges for short and long haul sectors now stand at Rs2,250 and Rs2,900 respectively. The ATF prices have gone up at least 5-6 times since 2004.