Air India flights being operated to bring back hundreds of Indian nationals stranded in Ukraine are costing `7-8 lakh per hour. The amount will go up depending on the duration of the flights.
Sources said that the cost of operating a chartered flight with the Dreamliner is around `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.
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. 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 sources, as the cost will be between `7 to 8 lakh per hour, the total cost for a round trip will be more than `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.
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.
The government is not charging people for the evacuation flights. Some state governments have also announced that they will bear the expenses of people from their respective states who are returning from Ukraine. The Dreamliner has more than 250 seats.
According to pilots who fly Dreamliners, the aircraft on an average consumes 5 tonnes of fuel per hour. The source said that once the operations are complete, the exact cost will be worked out and then the airline will send the bill to the government for reimbursement.
