Airline pilot clears doubts on flight delays, maintenance & safety

The ATC at Mumbai airport is one of the most efficient ATCs in the world.

BHPian pta320 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Some information I would like to share regarding flights which will help clear certain doubts, as I myself work as an airline pilot in India and experience these on a daily basis:

Most of the delays these days are caused by external factors beyond the airline's control, especially weather and departing in and out of severely infra-limited airports like Mumbai. Monsoon conditions take a toll on flying aircraft and a lot of deviation in the skies has to be made to avoid dangerous weather which inadvertently leads to delays. If some weather patch builds up over an airport, almost all the flights are delayed as the aircraft are forced to hold until weather conditions become favourable to reopen the airport or allow multiple arrivals/departures simultaneously.

There is a fuel policy that needs to be followed as per the regulations laid down by civil aviation authorities and airlines. There is a concept of minimum diversion fuel which needs to be followed very strictly which can sometimes lead to diversion to an alternate airport to refuel and then continue the flight to the destination, this is more common in monsoon conditions. This inadvertently leads to delays. But all these measures are put in place to ensure maximum safety for the passengers and can never be overlooked. Airlines cannot carry full fuel all the time as it is neither operationally nor financially feasible hence fuel calculations need to be done judiciously and although most of the time sufficient extra fuel is carried in a dynamic environment, things can change within a second and all the planning goes for a toss and so does diversion and delays happen.

Delays these days are hardly due to technical reasons unless you fly in some crapshoot airline with an ageing fleet and bare minimum maintenance. All major airlines like IndiGo, Air India etc. maintain extremely high levels of aircraft maintenance and any technical issue is usually sorted out very quickly.

An increasing issue these days as observed by me is medical problems faced at the gate which can lead to delays as the passenger either needs to be offloaded or has to be checked by a doctor to reconfirm fitness to fly. This eventually has a domino effect and all the flights subsequently are delayed.

Coming to Mumbai, it's the busiest single-runway airport in the world right now. The ATC at Mumbai airport is one of the most efficient ATCs in the world. There is a severe infrastructure shortage in Mumbai i.e it only has one operational runway at a time and traffic these days is way more than what the airport is supposed to handle hence in my experience almost all the flights that I operated out of or into Mumbai are delayed but same has to be kept in mind that the airport is handling the traffic the best it could at all times. Things will improve as the new airport opens in new Mumbai.

A small point that I would like to bring forward, pilots, cabin crew, engineers, gate agents etc. work tirelessly at all times be it 3 am in the morning or 5 pm in the afternoon. There is no fixed work and sleep cycle, and they have to stay away from home, friends or family most of the times of the year, hence a small amount of respect from the passengers and cooperation and understanding in case of delays help them a lot to stay motivated and also help the airlines mitigate the delay as early as possible.

Lastly, air travel continues to be the safest mode of transportation in the world which is very highly regulated and every time you fly to your destination, it is ensured that you reach safely. In India, as in most parts of the world, the safety of the passengers is the top-most priority and extremely foolproof measures are put in place to ensure the same. I understand that delays can be very frustrating but at the same time majority of them may simply be unavoidable as cutting corners here will jeopardize flight safety and the same has zero tolerance.

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