Aviation credit system more complex than Duckworth-Lewis: Tony Fernandes, AirAsia

HYDERABAD: AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes on Saturday criticised the government’s proposed new guidelines that imposes a complex credit system for domestic airlines to fly international.

“I would more easily understand cricket’s Duckworth-Lewis method than this,” he said in Hyderabad. AirAsia India, a joint venture with the Tata group, harbours ambitions to fly international, but will have to rack up flying credits before it can do so.

The Duckworth-Lewis method is a mathematical formulation to estimate the target score of a team batting second in a one-day match when it is interrupted by bad weather etc.

The government has mooted guidelines according to which an airline has to accrue credit points based on the distance it flies and the passengers it carries. A total of 300 so-called domestic flying credits make it eligible for long haul international flights and 600 points allow it to fly short haul routes. There are bonus points to be scored for flying to interior cities.

“The new rules are frankly disappointing. I am not sure of the exact numbers but the total number of Indian aircraft flying international routes may be lesser than the total number of planes in AirAsia’s global fleet. I cannot understand why a new airline is stopped from expanding,” he said.

AirAsia India started operations in June 2014 and said it will scale up fast and get 10 planes by end of 2014. That was later cut to six. However, the airline unveiled its fourth plane on Saturday.