Time to refresh airline on-time performance metric for level playing field

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November started on a very different note. Go FIRST dropped to a new low in terms of on-time performance (OTP) and IndiGo recovered from its earlier low. And, as the regulator published data for October, Air India made a comeback like never before – topping the OTP charts.

The OTP discussion was back and how! With IndiGo being relegated out of the top three in terms of punctuality – a tactic it used in its early years to push the competition – and Air India on top, it’s time to look deeper into this metric.

With the changes in the rankings, this, perhaps, may be an appropriate time to look holistically at how OTP is calculated.

The ministry of civil aviation started releasing statistics on OTP, load factors and passenger and flight counts on May 25, 2020, when aviation services resumed after the outbreak of Covid-19. But it’s time to reconsider the data gathering.

What are the current challenges?

Currently, the regulator – the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) – releases monthly summaries across airlines including OTP, load factor and market share.

OTP is based on flights at four airports – New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Not only are these private airports, they are also the top four in the country. In fact, the regulator does not include an airline in the OTP calculation unless it operates at all four airports. This is what has been observed in the past and continues with Akasa Air, which started operations earlier this year.

According to the schedule shared by OAG Aviation exclusively for this article, New Delhi airport accounts for 16.77 percent of all weekly domestic departures, with Mumbai following at 11.33 percent, Bengaluru 9.94 percent and Hyderabad 6.13 percent. That adds up to 44.16 percent!

This means that over 50 percent of the flights in the country do not even show up in the OTP calculation!

How does it impact airlines?

Depending on an airline’s strategy, its presence at metro airports could vary. While Air India and Vistara have fewer flights than IndiGo at New Delhi and Mumbai, as a percentage of their total flights, the number is huge and that makes the OTP calculation lopsided for them. On the other hand, if there is an impact due to bad weather at one of the major airports, the cascading effect is very large for IndiGo.

The data from OAG Aviation, a global provider of flight information and analytics, shows that 66 percent of Vistara’s flights depart from New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru or Hyderabad. For market leader IndiGo, 39 percent of its flights depart from the four metros. This means IndiGo’s OTP is based on only 39 percent of its departures while that of Vistara is based on 66 percent.

In absolute numbers, though, there is no comparison. Just 39 percent of IndiGo’s flights mean 3,960 weekly departures, which is more than any other airline!

Air India has 53 percent of its departures from the four airports, while AirAsia India has 50 percent of its departures from these airfields. Go FIRST has 49 percent, while SpiceJet has 40 percent.

How does it affect passengers?

For a passenger flying between Chennai and Kolkata – two metro cities that are not included in the OTP equation – relying on the airline’s general punctuality trend is a good thumb rule, it may not be the best.

With more airports being privatised, will it make sense for operators to put up airport-specific or route-specific OTP charts at the airport or on their websites? No harm!

Years ago, IndiGo came up with an advertising slogan: “On-time is a wonderful thing.” The ad ended on a nationalistic mode: “When we get our work done on time, we become the world’s most powerful economy “on-time.”

But as the economy grows, it seems the competition is singing this tune, not IndiGo.

With changes in aircraft rotations, the airline has significantly improved its OTP in the winter season.

However, from the passenger’s perspective, it’s time to reconsider how airline OTP is calculated and have it measured across all operational airports instead of a chosen few, which don’t even represent 50 percent of the total departures in the country.