AirAsia India: Aircraft utilisation crosses 10 hours with double daily Kochi, Hyderabad next?

• Double daily to Kochi from 14 August 2014 took the single aircraft past 10 hours of daily utilisation.
• Hyderabad looked like the next logical destination.
• The airline planned 25 minute turnarounds, but the timing of them was puzzling.

The second Kochi flight

AirAsia India quietly announced a second daily flight between Bangalore and Kochi. It was to start on 14 August 2014. On that day the airline's only aircraft, an Airbus A320 registered VT-ATF, would cross 10 hours of flying a day. With the new pattern, the average turnaround settled at about 30 minutes and the average block time of a flight was close to one hour.

There was still a hole in the day. The aircraft sat on the ground between 11:20 and 15:10, almost four hours. If that gap was left out, the aircraft's utilisation efficiency, meaning block hours divided by the total time the aircraft was in use, reached 69%. That figure would rise if the airline flew longer sectors.

If the rest of the pattern stayed as it was, the four hour gap was enough for two sectors of about 1 hour 10 minutes block time each.

Where could the aircraft go?

A 1 hour 10 minute block flight from Bangalore could reach Vijayawada, Hyderabad, Belgaum or Hubli. Hubli's runway was 5,500 feet long, which only just met what an A320 needed. Shorter sectors were also possible, to Madurai, Coimbatore or Mangalore.

The timing of AirAsia India's flights was also interesting. On its Tier II routes the airline did not go head to head with other carriers. Between 12:30 and 13:00, for example, IndiGo, SpiceJet and Jet Airways all had departures to Goa, which was the peak time for that holiday route out of Bangalore. AirAsia India instead filled a wide gap in the day. On Kochi, too, its flights ran at times no other airline served, which gave business travellers a comfortable day return.

Chennai, the only Tier I city it served from Bangalore, was different. Here the flights did not really fill a gap. They were timed close to the peaks, beating the early morning IndiGo flight by 20 minutes with a 06:05 departure, and offering another departure just before the string of evening flights between 19:00 and 23:00.

Loads on the early Bangalore to Chennai run were not as strong as the Goa loads. They hovered at 65 to 70%.

Why Hyderabad made sense

The sensible move was to tap another fairly dense route. With 30 minute turnarounds, the aircraft could leave Bangalore at 11:50 for a destination 1 hour 10 minutes away and return from there at 13:30.

Of the four cities within that block time, Hyderabad stood out because it was a Tier I route. An 11:50 departure also fell inside the busiest window for Bangalore to Hyderabad flights. Between 10:00 and 13:00 there were five departures to Hyderabad. No other part of the day was as dense.

Vijayawada, Hubli and Belgaum probably did not have the traffic for a 180 seat aircraft. Those cities were served by SpiceJet's 78 seat Bombardier Q400s and Air Costa's 67 seat Embraer E170s.

If Hyderabad happened, utilisation of the sole aircraft would reach 12 hours 35 minutes a day. That was a strong number. Air Costa planned a maximum of 11 hours 25 minutes on its E170s with one hour sectors and 20 minute turnarounds. AirAsia India got there by starting one hour earlier and stopping two and a half hours later than Air Costa.

Turnaround targets: touching the 25 minute mark

The pattern for the single aircraft showed two 25 minute turnarounds, one at Bangalore between the Chennai and Kochi flights and one at Kochi. These were the only two that matched the AirAsia Group target of 25 minutes for domestic flights. Oddly, the Bangalore one was planned between 08:30 and 08:55, the busiest period for aircraft movements at the airport, when congestion delays were most likely.

To speed things up, AirAsia used the aerobridge plus the rear stairs. Passengers left through the front door onto the aerobridge and through the rear door onto stairs and apron buses. Boarding was through the front door only.

To hit 25 minutes every time, the airline would need to board passengers in order, with the rear rows first, so the cabin settled faster. Whether that could work in practice was another question.