As Air India ferries hundreds of Indians stranded in Ukraine, the cost of operating a two-way evacuation flight will be more than Rs 1.10 crore and the amount will go up depending on the duration of the flights.
The airline is operating the services with wide-body Boeing 787 plane, better known as Dreamliner, from neighbouring countries of conflict-ridden Ukraine, including Romania and Hungary.
It has already brought back hundreds of Indians. The flights have been chartered by the Indian government.
An airline source told PTI that the cost of operating a chartered flight with the Dreamliner is around Rs 7 to 8 lakh per hour and the total amount will depend “on where we are going and how far we are going”.
The total cost will include expenses related to crew, fuel, navigation, landing and parking charges.
Also, considering that these flights are for relatively long duration, there will be two sets of crew onboard. The crew that operates the first leg of the flight will take rest in the return leg and will be replaced by another set of crew, the source said on condition of anonymity.
Currently, Air India is operating flights to Bucharest (Romania) and Budapest (Hungary) and both are offline stations for the airline, which means it does not have scheduled services to these places.
According to flight tracking website FlightAware, the flight from Bucharest to Mumbai that landed on Saturday night was for a duration of nearly six hours.
The flight from Budapest to Delhi was for about six hours and another flight from Delhi to Bucharest took over seven hours. An Air India flight from Bucharest to Delhi took over 5 hours.
As the cost will be between Rs 7 to 8 lakh per hour, the total cost for a round trip will be more than Rs 1.10 crore. The figure is calculated under the assumption that overall duration of the to and fro flight is around 14 hours. The expenses will shoot up in case the duration is longer.
The government is not charging people for the…