Day 2: Airlines fall in line

It seems like a progress from chaos to cosmos. A staggering 91 flights were delayed when the implementation of the new directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) circular began on Monday. But things improved a lot on the second day — around 45 flights, half the number of the first day, were delayed on Tuesday.

“It seems that the airlines have got their act together and tried to stick to the rule of closing aircraft doors 20 minutes before departure,” an airport official said. It was a boost to the DGCA drive to decongest traffic at the Mumbai airport.

The new rule, or the civil aviation requirement (CAR) of 2009, has prompted the airlines to inform their guests to check-in at least 40 minutes before the time of departure. “With effect from midnight today (Tuesday), the check-in counters for all domestic flights of Kingfisher Airlines departing from Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai will close 40 minutes before departure,” a spokesperson of the airlines said.

“The boarding gates will close at least 15 minutes before take-off time. It is, therefore, imperative that all our guests arrive at the airport well in time to check in, go through the security checks, and arrive at the boarding gates before they close down. Our call centres have alerted our guests of these changes via sms-es and emails. Our travel trade partners, too, have done the same.”

A spokesperson for the Jet Airways said, “We are in the process of informing our guests and frequent fliers about the change in rules, and have implemented several initiatives across the network to ensure compliance.”

No more flying on whims of clients: The CAR has turned the non-scheduled operators (NSOPs or charters) into scheduled operators. Instead of catering to the whims of clients, they will now have to adhere to fixed time slots.

“Earlier, eight charter flights were allowed to take off from Mumbai every hour. But with this CAR in place, only four can take-off, and that too as per the time slots allotted to them,” a charter operator said on condition of anonymity.

Thus, the NSOPs who cannot even advertise their flying schedules have been reduced to scheduled operators (airlines). “For two hours in the morning — from 8am to 10am — the airspace will be closed to the NSOPs. If a client has a flight at 7.30am, and misses it, he will have to wait till after 10am,” the charter operator said.

“The freedom of our clients flying as per their time is no longer there.”

The various NSOPs have not yet come together to discuss their problems with the DGCA. “We are informing our clients about the new slots, and asking them to report on time,” a Baffna Aviation official said.