328 flights delayed in April

        A day after the Mumbai International Airport Limited, released a list of frequently delayed flights (flights delayed more than 20% times) in April, an air passenger body said that the initiative would be ineffective unless the government regularly publishes such lists in the public domain.

“There should be a government-appointed agency assigned to put up such lists across all airports every month,” said Sudhakar Reddy, national president with the Air Passenger Association of India (APAI).

According to the list, on an average 328 flights out of the 600-odd daily flights across all domestic carriers were delayed while taking off or landing at Mumbai airport.

The civil aviation ministry said it is working out modalities to designate an agency such as the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to publish lists of errant flights across metro airports every month.

“We are working on it,” said Alok Sinha, joint secretary with the civil aviation ministry. Some of the flights featured in the list failed to stick to their schedule even once throughout the month. For instance, a Kingfisher flight — IT 3571 —that leaves Mumbai for Patna at 11.20am was delayed on all the 30 days it operated.

Similarly, Air India’s Mumbai-Goa flight AI 661 left the city on time only on four occasions out of the 25 times it operated in April.

A Jet Airways flight to Hyderabad, 9W 2135 that takes-off from the city at 2.35pm was also delayed on 24 times out of the 28 times it operated.

Among low-cost carriers, a daily Jetlite flight to Rajkot, S2 397, departed on schedule only twice in April. The flight arrival timings is also dismal. A Spicejet Airlines flight — SG 894 — from Delhi landed late in the city 30 out of the 31 times it was operated.

Another Indigo Airlines flight — 6E 177 — from Delhi was scheduled to reach the city at 1pm, but was delayed on 25 occasions out of 30 times it operated last month.