Airlines Deals

As many as 12 A-320 aircrafts of state-owned carrier Indian are grounded for major maintenance or want of engines, the Lok Sabha was informed on Thursday.

“The exact loss of revenue is difficult to compute as different aircrafts are under scheduled maintenance or otherwise for different periods of time,” Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said in reply to a question.

He said normally about six A-320s remain grounded for maintenance, but currently there were 12 aircrafts. The reasons for delay in repairs were not due to shortage of spare parts but for major maintenance, want of engines or scheduled maintenance checks.

In reply to another question, he said while there was no shortage of pilots in Indian, its subsidiary Alliance Air had a shortage of ten pilots each for its Boeing 737 and ATR turboprop aircrafts fleet.

Air India and subsidiary Air India Express have a shortage of 85 and 22 pilots respectively, Patel said.

On modernisation of Kolkata and Chennai airports, he said though modalities for implementing the modernisation plan were yet to be decided, the Airports Authority of India has drawn up plans for construction of a new international departure block with car parking faciility at an estimated cost of Rs 225 crores at Kolkata.

Thereafter, the new arrival block would be constructed, Patel said, adding action to extend runways and construct a new domestic terminal building and 11 additional bays was already being undertaken.

At Chennai, AAI has already taken up expansion and modification of the international terminal block at a cost of Rs 23.47 crores, besides constructing 20 additional parking bays.