Air India chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director (MD) Campbell Wilson on Thursday said that the airline was assessing ways to tackle the fog situation better.
In an internal message to the employees on Thursday, Campbell said, “As fog will recur in future seasons and airport/airway congestion will only increase, our Operations team is assessing how to better cope, such as by building a larger pool of CAT3 crew, better roster planning and schedule buffers and, where necessary, more pre-emptive flight cancellations.”
“In the meantime, I’d like to acknowledge everyone’s efforts in helping our customers under often difficult circumstances,” he added.
CAT III compliant runways allow flights to land on days with very poor visibility (fog or rains).
Campbell, however, said that the flight delays were due to dense fog along with the “unfortunately-timed closure of one of Delhi’s two low-visibility runways for repair”, significantly impacting all airlines’ operations, with consequential effect on passengers as well as airline staff.
This comes after the civil aviation regulator the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), last week, imposed a fine of ₹30 lakhs each on Air India and SpiceJet for not rostering pilots trained for fog landing despite their instruction given before the start of the fog season.
Before the onset of fog season every year, DGCA holds meetings with aviation stakeholders such as airline operators and aerodrome operators to check preparedness for low visibility operations. This year it was held on November 6 in the DGCA headquarters in Delhi.
“In the meeting, instructions regarding rostering of CAT II/III and LVTO (low visibility take-off) qualified pilots were issued to airline operators on Low Visibility Operations and Fog Preparedness,” the DGCA stated.
IndiGo CEO Peter Elbers had also said that the airline will review their operations along with the various stakeholders to avoid operational disruptions going forward. The CEO was speaking at the Wings India event held in Hyderabad last week.
Speaking on the sidelines of two years of Tata taking over Air India, Campbell said, “..new aircraft will arrive at the average rate of one in every six days throughout 2024, which will include five A350 aircraft, 17 A320s and 46 B737…”
He also said that the remaining four leased B777 aircraft will also be delivered in the near future.
Air India, Campbell said, is also in the process of upgrading 40 legacy Boeing 787 and 777 aircraft to the same standard, and completely replacing the seats and entertainment systems will begin in July 2024.
“Concurrently, we will also commence upgrading 41 A320 aircraft,” he said.
The CEO stated that after Tatas took over, Air India carried 56.5 million passengers (including Air India Express) in these two years, a 33% growth Y-O-Y. He also stated that Air India has 117 operational aircraft, an addition of 50%. “90% of the long-grounded aircraft are back in service,” he said.