After Vistara’s challenges with network disruption in the first week of May, another Tata group airline – Air India Express is facing a major disruption today. A section of its cabin crew reported sick at the last minute starting last night, resulting in delays and cancellations, read the statement from the airline. Air India Express will see erstwhile AirAsia India (now AIX Connect) merge into itself. The airline has been on an induction spree with 11 MAX 8 aircraft being inducted thus far in 2024.
Data provided by Cirium – an aviation analytics company, exclusively for this article shows that Air India Express has 778 domestic departures while 412 are international per week. Flights from Kochi, Kannur, Bengaluru are primarily impacted.
In March, the airline carried an average of 10900 domestic passengers per day and 14741 international passengers per day. While all flights are not cancelled, a substantial number will be impacted due to this menace.
What has happened?
Over 50 flights have been cancelled and many delayed since mid-night as the airline saw its crew report sick and not turn up at the airport. The last minute sick reports has led to the airline having to either delay the flights due to non-availability of crew and trying to arrange for spare crew. As the crisis ballooned, it would have led to cancellations and thus the complaints of delays of flights followed by cancellation.
Mass leaves have been used by staff in the past as well to disrupt operations and has happened in a manner which does not look like industrial action but is organised informally.
International monopoly routes leave little choice for passengers
The airline operates 87 unique city pairs on the international side, 37 of those or 42% are monopoly routes. Any cancellations on these leaves the passengers at the mercy of the airline with no direct option until the next day or sometimes for next two days since a lot of the network from South India to the gulf comprises non-daily flights for the airline. On the domestic routes, the airline has operations which overlap with group carriers as well as competition.
While all routes are important and passengers are travelling for a reason, the routes to the gulf see an added complexity for passengers who make the most of the holiday season and delays in resuming work can mean lengthy explanations.
What next for passengers?
Air India Express is a fully owned subsidiary of Air India. Will the parent step in and offer capacity with widebody to clear the backlog of passengers or route them via hubs? There are some stations where Air India does not operate as well.
The airline’s official statement calls for passengers to check the status of the flight before heading to the airport and additionally commits to full refund or complimentary rescheduling. On the domestic side, all airlines have been running high load factors giving little opportunity for passengers to take last minute flights which could also see a sudden increase in fares due to demand crunch.
On an immediate basis, passengers should check if their flights are operating on the Air India Express website or the call centre. It is unclear how soon the airline is processing the refunds or accommodating passengers on flights in the subsequent days.
Long way to go
The incident again highlights that the Tata group has a long way to go in the aviation space with back to back issues at Vistara and Air India Express. The airline had planned a merger of AirAsia India with Air India Express and Vistara with Air India to be completed long back. Various regulatory approvals have taken time and few hurdles remain to be crossed.
One of the major issues has been differential salaries along with changes in terms and conditions of their work contract. The airline has had to retract its decisions about sharing rooms on layover in the past. It is unknown what the current demands are for the protest and reporting sickness.
For Air India group to take on IndiGo, mere orders and network expansion will not help as it has to ensure a seamless operation. Such incidents put pressure on the market standing with passengers thinking twice before booking in future. How soon will the issue resolve itself? Ideally, soon but as in case of Vistara, the cancellations have been prolonged impacting bottom lines. How will it be for Air India Express?
