 "Airport")
Delhi airport is in headlines because of fog and flight delays but there is some cheerful news too.
Delhi airport sees the highest number of Airbus A320 flights in the world, according to a report by aviation website anna.aero.
The website, which tracks airline network planning, analysed aircraft type wise departures for the first week of August. The report was released earlier in the week.
While Dubai airport has the highest number of Boeing 777 and Airbus A380 flights, Delhi tops the list for A320 movements.
According to the report, Delhi has 1698 departures with A320 aircraft per week - that is over 242 daily departures. Shanghai Pudong and Barcelona airports were ranked second and third with 1496 and 1495 weekly departures.
With over 20 per cent increase in domestic air traffic airlines are adding planes. Capacity expansion is led by IndiGo which has a fleet of 124 Airbus A320s which is the second highest in the world.
The Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 planes are a mainstay of domestic airlines. There are 192 A320s in service in the country and IndiGo, Air India, GoAir, Vistara and AirAsia are the operators.
“We are inducting new aircraft in our fleet and among all airports Delhi will definately witness more connectivity with other stations” said an IndiGo spokesperson.
“IndiGo has grown the most in the last few years and a lot of it has come from Delhi since expansion has not been possible at Mumbai. Likewise Vistara in the two years of existence had to focus on Delhi since mumbai had contraints,” said aviation analyst Ameya Joshi.
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IndiGo parks 40 of 124 planes overnight at Delhi and has around 150 daily departures from the national capital.
New Delhi sees around 1200 flight movements daily including charters.
Jet Airways and SpiceJet which operate Boeing 737s on domestic routes have not made net addition to their fleets. Air India Express which also flies Boeing 737 has only recently started expanding flights from North India.
“China Eastern Airlines has the largest fleet of A320 planes and it's hub Shanghai Pudong is ranked second busiest for A320 flights. Similarly American Airlines has a large fleet of two other A320 variants (A319 and A321) and has multiple hubs. With five A320 operators it is not surprising to see Delhi in the top spot” says Devesh Agarwal, editor of aviation blog Bangalore Aviation.
