CRISIS IN THE CLOUDS

INDIAN AVIATION IS IN CRISIS. AIRLINES ARE GRAPPLING WITH FLIGHT CANCELLATIONS, CREW SHORTAGES, AND COMPLAINTS ABOUT POOR SERVICE, ARE BLEEDING DUE TO RISING COSTS WILL THE FASTEST-GROWING AVIATION MARKET RECOVER? 

- ARNAB DUTTA

ON APRIL 1, T.V. Mohandas Pai was stuck at the Bengaluru airport. The former Infosys CFO and Chairman of Manipal Global Education and Aarin Capital Partners was scheduled to travel to Ahmedabad on a Vistara flight at 10:30 am, but the departure was pushed back to 12 pm. With no prior intimation from the airline, Pai took to social media platform X to vent his frustration: “Why did they not message the delay? Terrible service, no announcement, no clarity.” Vistara, in its reply, refuted Pai’s claims of not sending out communications, saying it had communicated the delay to the “registered contact details present on the PNR” and said that the flight “was delayed due to operational reasons”.

Pai wasn’t the only one. Several Vistara passengers travelling in early April found their flights being cancelled—many at the last minute—as the airline, which held a 9.8% share of domestic passenger traffic as of March, cancelled dozens of flights. According to estimates, Vistara cancelled 80 flights on April 1, while 190 were delayed. Together, these formed some 75% of the airline’s average daily flights.

Trouble had been brewing at Vistara—which has a fleet size of around 70 aircraft and flies to 50 destinations, domestic and international—since early March. There were repeated flight cancellations at the airline, a joint venture between the Tata group and Singapore Airlines, which the management blamed on unfavourable weather conditions, traffic congestion and other unforeseen factors. Industry watchers say the key reason came to the fore in end-March: a disagreement over new payment terms—in the run-up to its merger with sister airline Air India—between pilots and the management. As pilots went on unplanned leave, the airline had no option but to cancel scheduled flights.