GURUGRAM ‘COCKPIT’ HELPS INDIGO FLY AROUND FOG HURDLE

An integrated team of 200 staff crunches data to minimise disruption for 149 planes, but airport infrastructure poses a challenge

IndiGo is the largest airline in India with 149 aircraft. It flies to 47 destinations. The fog that engulfs north India for almost 15 days in December and January has its maximum impact on an airline like IndiGo. To ensure the airline can fly through minimal disruption, IndiGo has set up a centralised flight operations system at its Gurguram head office. From this office, the team controls everything from flight dispatch and scheduling to meteorology. The team, which comprises around 200 staff, crunches realtime data to alert pilots and passes advisory to passengers within the shortest-possible time frame. ARINDAM MAJUMDER writes

Things can be tricky for airlines operating out of the Sheikh Ul Alam International Airport at Srinagar. Weather can turn from bad to worse very quickly there.

Last Thursday was one such day. While the weather department informed the airlines that visibility would improve later in the day, but till 11 am things looked bleak. For the country’s largest airline, IndiGo, operating out of such gaps in information, proves challenging. IndiGo didn’t wait. It cancelled all its flights for that day and informed passengers through calls and SMSes.

“We operate flights to eight destinations out of Srinagar. Without proper information, our passengers would have arrived at the airport, which is not huge enough to handle such a rush. Moreover, if one of our aircraft is held up there, it delays other sectors as ours is a network-based carrier,” said Tarun Vijh, associate director at the operations, control and dispatch unit of IndiGo.

To ensure that the airline can fly through minimal disruption, it has set up a centralised flight operations system in its Guruguram-based head office. From this office, the team controls everything from flight dispatch to scheduling and meteorology. The team, which comprises around 200 staff, crunches real-time data to alert pilots and passes advisory to passengers within the shortest-possible time frame.

“Here, we try to minimise the impact of weather-related disorders and maintain the punctuality of the fleet,” said Vijh, pointing at a screen that shows the weather forecast for all 47 destinations the airline flies to. “We have set up our own meteorological alert system for accurate real-time data and forecasts even for places we don’t fly to,” said Vijh. This helps the airline to divert aircraft to locations when the need arises. According to him, it just takes 30 minutes from the time the first weather disruption is reported to the passenger getting informed about it.

IndiGo is the largest airline in India with 149 aircraft. The fog that engulfs north India for almost 15 days in December and January has its maximum impact on an airline like IndiGo, which is based out of New Delhi and operates close to 1,000 flights daily. Delay or diversion of a single aircraft can throw the entire schedule of the day into jeopardy, resulting in more disruptions. “Maintaining on-time performance during winter is a challenge.”

According to a senior executive of a low-cost carrier, in a market like India, punctuality is something airlines build their brand around. For an average Indian flyer, rather than the amenities inside the aircraft, it is the punctuality that matters.

One might not be ready to shell out for comfort but would pay to select an airline that is disciplined.

The data meteorologists crunch at the control centre is passed on to the fuel-monitoring cell, which sits on piles of data to be utilised for giving guidance to pilots.

“Basically, here we guide the pilot on load and trim, on how much fuel to carry, how much load to trim,” said Vijh. The amount of fuel becomes significant during congestions at airports caused by fog. Often, pilots do not receive permission to land. They hover over the airport for a landing signal, and, if the need arises, fly to alternate locations.

“We are also in constant touch with pilots through Flight Following Cell text messages and short emails passing on real-time information to make decisionmaking easier,” Vijh said.

However, the airline’s exponential growth is facing a hurdle in the underdeveloped airport infrastructure of the country. Limited airports are CAT-IIIB enabled. That means, most of the stations that IndiGo operate to are not compatible to handle an A320 when visibility drops below 50 metres. “Look at Bengaluru — our second-largest hub with more than 100 departures. It’s not CAT-III enabled and operations get delayed frequently,” Vijh said.

Making the airport CAT-III equipped is a costly affair and most airports operated by stateowned Airports Authority of India (AAI) lags. “I wish many more airports were CAT-III compliant, though we may have trained pilots and equipped aircraft, we will not be able to operate due to airport constraints,” IndiGo President Aditya Ghosh had said.

AAI, which manages 125 airports in the country, has said that it was planning more airfields to be CAT-III compliant. “Lucknow and Jaipur has been upgraded to CAT-III. By next winter, we will have Amritsar and Kolkata enabled, too. So, disruptions will be less,” said Guruprasad Mohapatra, chairman, AAI.