With aircraft-on-ground, DHL takes a new gambit

It’s a service that will reduce revenue loss of airlines due to an aircraft being grounded every time there is a technical fault.

Logistics firm DHL has launched dedicated aircraft-on-ground (AOG) services which will cut the time for sourcing aircraft spare parts and components from 2-3 days to less than 12-17 hours. 

It is the first company to launch such a dedicated service in India.

A grounded aircraft loses revenues for operating the number of flights scheduled for it for that day, besides also implicating a cascading effect on other flights.

Neville D’souza, engineering and logistics manager, Paramount Airways, said that the losses for the airline could translate to as much as Rs one crore a day for smaller Embraer aircraft. “Besides, the loss of goodwill is more damaging,” he said.

To help airlines save time during such crisis, DHL is planning to take advantage of its extensive network and more than 4,000 partner-alliances worldwide to reduce the sourcing time. It will ship in spare parts and components from different parts of the globe to Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore, from where its domestic network of Blue Dart would take over.

“The huge network across the globe and special teams working for picking, delivering and clearance of the spare parts will ensure quicker turnaround time for the supplies,” Sandeep Juneja, director-sales, DHL, said.

Capt GR Gopinath owned cargo venture, Deccan 360, is also considering starting the service once its hub in Nagpur is ready.

He said owing to the critical nature of AOG supplies, express companies can easily charge premium on the service.

Ajit Karnik, managing director and CEO, Duke Aviation Engineering Pvt Ltd, said that the dedicated service gives an edge to DHL over other players. He said the logistics was better equipped to speed up delivery of spare parts than other suppliers.

“Currently, airlines in India have a pooling arrangement for parts in case of an AOG, however logistics is still needed for those to be moved to the place of requirement,” Karnik said.

Paramount’s D’souza said, “For niche organisations like Paramount, which use different kind of aircraft, the just-in-time concept makes a lot of difference as we save almost two days of earnings.”

Tim Butzmann, chief executive officer, Lufthansa Technik, the German aircraft spare parts company that has a maintenance and component supply  tie-up with Gopinath’s cargo venture Deccan 360, said, “There are components available on site and it is transported through the service provider available, however absence of a dedicated service leads to a delay of 1-2 days.”

He said while Lufthansa Technik was currently helping other cargo carriers to transport the parts to domestic airline customers, it is seriously exploring opportunity in this area.