Turbulent times for Indian airlines

Passenger assaulting pilot over flight delay is a result of poor communication and mismanagement at a time of bustling domestic air travel

Even by the not very exacting standards of the Indian flyer, this is not acceptable. A passenger punched a flight’s captain this week as he was announcing a flight delay, one of hundreds as North India is hit by peak fog conditions.

The Indian air traveller has shown his entitled side several times — insulting cabin crew, urinating on a seat, or getting into a brawl with other passengers — but assaulting a pilot must rank as the ugliest episode yet.

While the man’s actions need to be condemned, it must be acknowledged that there has been a complete breakdown of air travel in Delhi as well as at airports suffering the ripple effect of its backlog. The incident took place on an Indigo flight to Goa which was reportedly delayed by 13 hours. Over the last few days, irate passengers have been sharing their experiences of not just being stuck endlessly inside a plane, but of also being packed like sardines at aerobridges for hours.

Lack of transparency

Airlines like Indigo have also been accused of lack of transparency and not communicating with passengers. They get away with this behaviour since it attracts no penalty.

The challenge is also at airports. Delhi has four runways and any closure of the CAT-III certified runway that allows for precision landing in low visibility during leads to chaos.

Since September, the only CAT-III compliant runway was closed for repairs. Another runway was shut down reportedly due to a crane at a construction site on its far side disrupting flight signals. With such operational inefficiency, let us not even get into whether there are enough pilots trained to land in low visibility.

The government once promised to make train stations on par with Indian airports. Whether that happens or not, ironically airports, definitely Delhi this January resembles a railway station. As did the tarmac of Mumbai airport where in unprecedented scenes passengers were seen sitting on the ground and eating after their flight was diverted!

Avalanche of complaints

More than 48 hours after the crisis, there was an avalanche of social media posts by angry passengers, prompting Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia to step in and control the chaos.

A standard operating procedure has been issued, looking at the firefighting it is as though winter fog in the North is a rare celestial spectacle and not something that comes like clockwise every December/ January.

The measures though are welcome including the requisite for airlines to publish real-time information and keep passengers updated on flights delayed for more than three hours. But to ask passengers to contact airlines may be easier said than done and passing the buck again.

The weather forecast for the upcoming days is also bleak, hopefully both airlines and airports won’t take the passengers for any more rides.

Jyotsna Mohan is the author of ■

the investigative book Stoned, Shamed, Depressed. She was also a journalist with NDTV for 15 years.