About two weeks after cancellations due to cabin crew taking mass sick leave, Tata-owned Air India Express (AIX) has been unable to put things back in order as it struggles with a new scheduling software that handles rosters. The new software was launched just as the carrier was trying to cope with the sick leaves.
Multiple pilots and cabin crews told ET that the airline has been forced to resort to manually locating staff and scheduling them for flights. As a result, about 50 out of 300 daily Air India Express flights have been hit, said people with knowledge of the matter. Tata Group carriers Air India and Vistara are helping out by operating some 20 additional daily flights, they said.
“We have been asked to manually report our locations in a Google sheet which will then be fed into the new system to build the roster for June,” said an AIX crew member. “Many of us are putting in extra hours calling up our colleagues and locating them so that they can be assigned flights.”
V S Rajkumar, chief of operations on Monday wrote to crew asking for patience as the airline was facing hurdle with the new software.
“We recognize that adapting to a new system can be daunting, and it may require some patience and adjustment from all of staff, Cabin Crew and Pilots,” the note reviewed by ET said.An Air India Express spokesperson said disruptions have largely been mitigated and it anticipates a full recovery this week.Air India Express migrated to the new scheduling software from Canada-based CAE Group on May 5. About 100 flights were cancelled on May 8 and 9 due to the mass sick leaves. While the cabin crew resumed work after the airline agreed to take back employees it had sacked, among other things, its troubles have persisted.
The Tata Group is overhauling IT systems at its carriers as it revamps the airline business. The reorganisation involves Air India Express absorbing AirAsia India and Air India and Vistara merging, creating a budget carrier and a full-service airline.
Rostering is a complex process that has to take into account stringent rules on working and rest timings, airline policies and unforeseen circumstances.
Air India Express’ system, however, couldn’t keep track of where its crew members and pilots were after the disruption on 8 & 9 May.
“The recent cancellations, which account for about 5-8% of our daily flights, were primarily due to the cascading impact of an unauthorised mass sick reporting by a section of our crew members,” said the AIX spokesperson. “This unfortunate and unexpected event coincided with our transition to a more sophisticated crew scheduling software. This resulted in a longer-than-expected stabilisation period.”
An executive who has overseen software transition in a large South Asian airline said that airline needs to have proper User Acceptance Testing (UAT) with the new software before going live.
“This is to ensure that the software does what it was designed to do in real-world situations. During the transition there is always something that goes wrong. The best and well trained people should be in charge during such a process,” the executive said.
An AIX executive however said that transferring to a new software always causes teething issues, said an AIX executive.
“It is akin to upgrading to a new iPhone from an Android. The disruption by cabin crew also happened at the same time, resulting in a severe disruption. When the new schedule of June comes in, everything will be in place,” the person said.
Air India Express has chalked out an aggressive expansion plan aimed at taking it to second place behind market leader IndiGo in the domestic market. It has added 20 Boeing 737 Max aircraft since September and will add 30 more by the end of this year. However, experts said the Tata Group will face challenges in consolidating its airlines.
“We can never underestimate the cultural and human aspects of any merger between two companies. It’s never just about spreadsheets, calculations and so-called synergies, because human beings are not as neat and tidy as spreadsheets can be,” said John Strickland, founder and director of JLS Consulting. “We are talking about culture clashes, expectations, style of management, and all of those things pose problems.”
