New Delhi, March 14: Air India lost over Rs 48 crore on flight delays in the last three years, and its services on only 14 routes out of 202 were meeting the total cost of operations.

“The estimated loss to Air India as a result of delays to its flight during the three years were Rs 13.44 crore in 2009-10, Rs 15.75 crore in 2010-11 and Rs 19.48 crore in 2011-12,” minister of state for civil aviation K.C. Venugopal informed the Rajya Sabha today.

He said sometimes flights were delayed because of technical, operational, commercial and weather-related reasons that were beyond the control of the airline.

To a separate question, the minister said the carrier was meeting the total operational cost in only 14 out of the 202 routes.

Services on 12 routes are not being able to meet fuel costs. On 74 routes, cash costs are not being met, he said. The state-run carrier’s 102 routes are meeting cash costs but not the total cost. The minister also informed that the government had infused an equity of Rs 9,000 crore into the airline since 2009-10.

Meanwhile, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has spent over Rs 34 crore on the maintenance of 31 non-operational airports in the last three years. Besides these, there are 45 defence airports, 83 state government airports and five private airstrips lying unused, Venugopal said.

The 31 non-operational airports are located in 16 states. The AAI had spent Rs 8.07 crore on them in 2009-10, Rs 19.23 crore in 2010-11, and Rs 11.46 crore in 2011-12, he said, adding the AAI had suffered a loss of Rs 38.74 crore on these airports in the last three fiscal years.

On the audit of flying clubs, he said the Directorate General of Civil Aviation had audited 39 of the 44 private and government flying schools.

During the audit, irregularities relating to the upkeep of documents such as compendium, training circulars, completion of training dossiers briefing, debriefing, maintenance of dissemination register for information to working engineers and false logging were found.