The data, as published by FlightRadar24, reports that of 146 flights between Hong Kong and the Indian capital between November to April 19 this year, only two of them arrived on time.
Budget carrier SpiceJet is set to add a Mumbai-Hong Kong route, complementing its New Delhi-Hong Kong route launched November 2018.
New routes are always good news for passengers, but travellers are wondering if the LCC’s reputation for delays on the existing route means passengers can expect late arrivals on this new route too.
The data, as published by FlightRadar24, reports that of 146 flights between Hong Kong and the Indian capital between November to April 19 this year, only two of them arrived on time.
While the alleged 12,193 minutes of delays (that’s 203.20 hours in total; 83 minutes on average per flight) racked up during this time paints a poor picture, a spokesman for SpiceJet insists that flights were late on only a few instances.
According to SpiceJet’s data, it achieved 88% and 87% on-time performance (OTP) in November and December last year, respectively. For January and February this year, OTP was about 84% and 81%.
Instead, the spokesperson indicated it was the grounding of the airline’s Boeing 737 MAX flights (the aircraft makes up around a quarter of the carrier’s fleet), on March 13 that accounted for most of the delays.
The Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department (CAD) has announced it “understood their recent delays were primarily related to aircraft rotation issues”, i.e. the 737 MAX grounding, and its OTP is similar to other airlines.
Moving forward, the airline will use Jet Airways’ older 737s for the new route, replacing the grounded 737 MAX aircraft.