AirAsia says new flying guidelines are ‘restrictive’


The new guidelines bring into place a credit based system wherein an airline accumulates point basis the distance it flies. 
AirAsia India—the joint venture airline between Tata Sons and AirAsia Berhad— is unhappy with the new guidelines the government has mooted to replace a rule that now requires domestic carriers to fly locally for five years and have a fleet of 20 aircraft.
The new guidelines bring into place a credit based system wherein an airline accumulates point basis the distance it flies and is allowed to fly international once it has piled up a critical mass. There are bonus points for flying to remote areas. An accumulation of 300 of these so called Domestic Flying Credits (DFCs) will make an airline eligible to fly long haul international routes such as to the US and Europe.

Curiously, for starting flights to shorter distances in Asia or the Gulf, an airline has to accumulate double the points ie 600. AirAsia being a low fare airline would look short haul international routes and that is where the new rule would be cumbersome for it. AirAsia's chief executive Mittu Chandilya said the new policy is "well intentioned" but "has issues".
He said the new rules are "restrictive: essentially the newcomers are still at a disadvantage when it comes to flying international and where." "Reading into the details of the policy and as per our estimates, we would need to deploy 16 aircraft for an entire year to accumulate 600 DFCs, not to mention the additional aircraft that will be required to actually fly these routes (over and above the 16)," he said.
"Taking a linear (pragmatic) roll out and factoring in aircraft required to deploy international capacity, this could take 2/3 years and still require at-least 20 aircraft," he added. AirAsia currently has a fleet of just three Airbus A320 planes. There are bonus points for flying to remote or CAT III areas but Chandilya said " one aircraft flying CAT 3 routes for an entire year will accrue 37 DFCs, or just 6% of the required criteria.."

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