 "Jet Airways")
Naresh Goyal-promoted full-service carrier Jet Airways has taken various steps including optimising aircraft rotations and streamlining internal process to regain its on-time performance (OTP), which hit a rock bottom at 52.2 per cent last December.
As a result of these steps, the airline delivered an OTP of 82.9 per cent from four metro airports in April, the airline said.
Significantly, Jet Airways along with its subsidiary JetLite had reported an average 83.6 per cent OTP from four airports - Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru - together in April 2016, according to the DGCA data.
"Operational reliability is a very important aspect for an airline, more so for Jet Airways, since a substantial percentage of our traffic almost half is corporate. Our OTP has been showing a steady improvement in the past few months, after a drop in the second half of 2017," said Vinay Dube, chief executive officer, Jet Airways.
OTP of an airline is measured from the time an aircraft gets detached from an aerobridge or step ladder for the push back at the departing airport, to the time it gets attached to an aerobridge at the arriving airport.
At present the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) publishes monthly OTP of domestic airlines from four metro airports - Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
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The significant jump witnessed in the OTP data is the result of several measures Jet Airways has undertaken to improve its OTP at its hubs, Dube said.
The measures include optimising aircraft rotations, streamlining internal (ground services and operational control) processes, as well as provisioning spare aircraft at Delhi and Mumbai, to overcome delays due to weather and ATC, he added.
Additionally, effective this summer block times have been revised to reflect more accurate travel times between city pairs across India, according to him.
Block time or block hours refer to the span of time from the switching on of the aircraft's engines to its switching off.
"All the above steps should enable us to bring about further improvements in the airline's OTP in the months to come," Dube said.
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