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| Photo Credit: V. Sudershan

Air India’s recent announcement that most of its cabin crew must share hotel rooms during layovers has sparked concern over their need for rest and privacy, especially during long-haul flights.

In a mail to its cabin crew on Tuesday (October 1, 2024), the airline informed them of some key policy changes regarding layover entitlements, leisure travel, and gratuity, among others. It informed them that while Air India crew were earlier entitled to a single room during layovers, “cabin crew” and “cabin seniors” will now be assigned rooms on twin-sharing basis; only senior cabin crew such as “cabin managers” and “cabin executives” will be allotted single rooms.

The policy will be effective from December 1, 2024 for all airlines in the Air India Group, which also include Vistara, Air India Express, and AIX Connect. The new norms have been announced as Air India is merging with Vistara, where cabin crew were already required to share hotel rooms.

Rest, privacy concerns

It is learnt that several employees have shot off a mail to Air India CEO Campbell Wilson and its Chief Human Resource Officer Ravindra Kumar, objecting to the revised norms. Their letters underline that such a policy is detrimental to rest requirements and could impact their health as well as performance.

Employees have also expressed their concern over how often crew have varying flight schedules, with different sleep cycles as well as rest periods. Additionally, they say privacy and personal space are important, especially after ultra-long haul flights of upto 18 hours, and irregular shifts.

“With the merger of Air India and Vistara formalising, there is a need to harmonise these policies for employees of both the organisations,” an airline spokesperson said in response to a query, adding that these were part of compensation and benefits announced that are “competitive and benchmarked to industry standards.”

Fatigue impacts safety

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has framed rules for flight duty and rest timings, as these are a critical safeguard against fatigue-related risks that could impact the safety of flight operations. The regulator defines rest as “a continuous, uninterrupted and defined period of time, subsequent to or prior to duty, during which a cabin crew member is free from all duties, standby and reserve.”

“It is not kind, it is not safe,” said Arun Kapur, former safety and emergency procedures instructor for cabin crew training at Air India.

“Different people like to wind down after work in their own way. Someone may like to watch television, another person may want to read,” he explained. Further, he said, two cabin crew members on the same flight too may have different rest requirements and may not want to sleep at the same time.

Long-haul flight needs

“On long-haul flights, crew are allowed to take rest on rotation, and it is possible that of the two cabin crew members accommodated in a room, one got to rest in the first four hours, while another rested in the last four hours of an 18-hour flight. So, you have a situation where the first person is eager to get some sleep, while the other feels wide awake,” Mr. Kapur said.

While other domestic airlines such as IndiGo and SpiceJet also make cabin crew share hotel rooms, these airlines do not fly on long and ultra-long haul international routes such as to the U.K., Europe, the U.S., and Australia, which involve longer working hours for the crew as well as more night flying that upsets their circadian rhythms.