AI starts enhanced 100 hour aircraft checks

Kochi: Air India has started providing enhanced 100 hour checks for aircraft at the engineering maintenance facility at the Cochin International Airport in Nedumbassery, thus effecting a saving of about Rs 25 crore a year.

Till now all engineering checks were done at Mumbai. By providing this facility for aircraft that have completed 100 hours of flying at the airport here, it is expected that about 25 hour weekly 'dead-leg operation' between Kochi and Mumbai could be avoided, thus saving AI about Rs 2 crore a month.

Inaugurating the facility at Nedumbassery, civil aviation secretary and AI chairman K Roy Paul said Mumbai will continue to be the main hub of AI. “But we need to have other facilities at Kochi and Delhi, which will come up in due course of time.“

Paul said the Kochi airport has to grow as in the next two to three years, facilities at Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore airports will be 'dramatically improved'.