The Airports Authority of India (AAI) officials headed by the Chennai Airport Director, E.P. Hareendranathan held a meeting on Monday to discuss the implementation of on-time-performance (OTP) by airlines in the domestic sector.
The new system is coming into force from September 1, which has been made mandatory by the Director General of Civil Aviation.
Under the new system all the airlines should close the door of the aircraft 15 minutes before the departure time, inform the Air Traffic Control tower and push back the aircraft. If an airline fails to do so, then it will not be allowed to take off immediately and the Air Traffic Control tower will give the airline another time slot for departure. This has been agreed upon as the AAI has decided to allow five departures every 10 minutes. Apart from AAI officials, representatives from airlines, Central Industrial Security Force and Air Traffic Control Tower, participated in the meeting.
Trial basis
A senior AAI officer said already the OTP is being implemented at the Chennai airport on an experimental basis for the past one week. The airlines have been issued three different colours – white, green and red. The new system is on from 5.30 and 11 in the morning which is a peak hour for the domestic sector flights at the airport.
The new system would be monitored for a fortnight from the date of implementation, after which a review meeting would be held to improve the conditions, AAI authorities said.
