Global aviation works with two seasons: Northern Summer, which starts on the last Sunday of March and ends on the last Saturday of October, and Northern Winter, which covers the remainder of the year. With much fanfare, the regulators declare the allotted slots and operational airports for each season. However, slot utilisation has remained poor over the years, with only a handful of airlines utilising their allotted slots.
A look at the data released by the regulator and adjusted on a weekly basis shows that this year has been no different. The average slot utilisation for three months is just over 87%, with a discrepancy between usage, which varies from 35% on the low side to 94% on the high side.
An airport slot is essentially permission granted by an airport’s coordinating authority to an airline, allowing it to use the airport’s infrastructure (runway, taxiway, terminal, gate) at a specific date and time for either an arrival or a departure.
Slots are always finite, and when airlines receive approvals but fail to operate, especially amongst the top 10 airports, it negatively impacts both passengers and airport operations. From a passenger perspective, they lose out on connectivity that another airline might have offered. From the airport’s perspective, an unutilised slot is a loss of revenue. This loss of revenue eventually gets passed on to the passenger in the larger scheme of things, albeit indirectly.
Reasons galore, but few operators pull it off
While traditionally the April to June quarter has been the strongest for all airlines, this year was different. The year, which was slated to be the best ever summer in terms of capacity, began with the ghastly Pahalgam attack in the second half of April. This was followed by Operation Sindoor in May, and just when things looked like returning to normal, the deadly crash of AI171 at Ahmedabad disrupted operations further.
IndiGo led the pack with a 95.7% utilisation of slots. The airline had started much higher at 97.6% in April, the first full month of operations in the Northern Summer schedule, but scaled back operations due to Operation Sindoor.
During the same duration, Akasa Air scaled up its utilisation from 87.1% to over 90%, maintaining the three-month average at 89.1%. Both airlines have been leaders in utilising their slots over the last few seasons.
Air India and Air India Express recorded utilisation rates of 84.7% and 76.5%, respectively. Air India Express is now four times its pre-privatisation size due to a mix of reasons, including the merger of erstwhile AirAsia India into Air India Express, transfer of planes from parent Air India and its own rapid fleet induction.
SpiceJet has had one more quarter where its utilisation of slots has been extremely poor, coinciding with its domestic market share falling to 2%. The airline declared losses of ₹238 crore for the quarter and utilised only 50% of its allocated slots on average.
A few regional carriers like Fly 91 and IndiaOne Air, which are much smaller than SpiceJet, have done better.
The worst airline in terms of slot adherence has been flybig, which has faced continuous headwinds but is too small to make a huge dent in the market. The airline utilised only 35.8% of its slots, which were allocated to it.
Star Air, the longest-serving private regional carrier in India, utilised fewer than 60% of its slots on average in the first three months of the Northern Summer schedule.
Use it or lose it?
As the world’s third-largest aviation market, India should ideally adopt the world’s best practices. However, for various reasons, they are not followed in full force.
Globally, many airports have a use-it-or-lose-it policy, implying that if an airline does not use its slot for 80% of the time, it cannot claim a right to that slot any more. It may be time for Indian airports to implement this, with strong government backing in the larger interest of Indian aviation.
Over the years, regulators and airports have moved toward higher transparency, which started with public declarations of On-Time Performance.
Airlines with higher stakes and good performers, such as Akasa Air and IndiGo, team up for demanding transparency and accountability.
As the world transitions from Northern Summer to Northern Winter schedule in October, the question remains: will things be any different?
