An Air India plane. File
| Photo Credit: VIJAY SONEJI

Passengers of a San Francisco-bound Air India flight had a tough time at the Delhi airport on May 30 evening as the departure was delayed for more than six hours due to a technical issue with the aircraft.

The flight AI 183, which was to be operated with a Boeing 777 aircraft and take off at around 1530 hours on Thursday, has been rescheduled and will now take off at 1500 hours on Friday, according to an airline official.

Some passengers of the flight took to social media complaining about the delay and one of them said that there was no air conditioning in the plane.

The airline official said the aircraft had developed a technical issue and engineering checks were carried out.

Due to the delay, the crew had crossed the Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) and also if the flight had taken off, it would have reached San Francisco when there are night landing restrictions there, the official added.

The flight is now scheduled to take off at 1500 hours on Friday, the official said and added that passengers were offered the options of full refund, complimentary rescheduling and hotel accommodation.

Rise in number of flight delays

In March, the aviation security watchdog Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) issued new guidelines that will allow the exit of passengers from an aircraft through an airport departure gate in case there is a long delay in operating the flight after boarding.

The directive from the BCAS had come against the backdrop of rising instances of congestion and flight delays, resulting in passengers getting stuck in aircraft after boarding for long hours.

BCAS Director General Zulfiquar Hasan, on April 1, said the guidelines will help in ensuring “less harassment” for passengers and they would not have to keep sitting inside an aircraft for long hours after boarding.

In case of long flight delays and other emergencies after boarding, passengers will be permitted to exit through the departure gate of the airport concerned.

“Airport operators have to make arrangements for the infrastructure, including for screening, for implementing the guidelines,” he said and added that a decision on deboarding the passengers will be taken by airlines and security agencies concerned.

It could not be immediately ascertained whether Air India opted to follow these guidelines.

Meanwhile, an Air India flight from Mumbai to San Francisco, which was originally scheduled to take off at 1600 hours on May 24, was rescheduled and finally departed at around 1730 hours on May 25. The inordinate delay was due to multiple reasons, including a technical glitch.

On May 24, passengers had to wait inside the aircraft for more than five hours before the flight was rescheduled for May 25.

Air India and other planes parked at the airport in Mumbai on May 9, 2024.
| Photo Credit: PTI

Air India Express has agreed to reinstate 25 cabin crew who were terminated after a large number of them reported “sick” since May 6, while the flight crew have agreed to report to duty following a meeting mediated by the Chief Labour Commissioner (CLC) in New Delhi on May 9.

The representatives of the airline management have also assured that all the issues raised by the cabin crew pertaining to alleged discrimination emanating from the merger with erstwhile AirAsia India and removal of allowances will be resolved. The CLC will hold another meeting on May 28 on the matter.

On the third day of the protest on “leave”, Air India Express was forced to cancel 85 flights across its network. Another Tata Group airline Air India supported it by operating flights on 20 of its routes, according to a media statement issued by Air India Express.

The CLC called a conciliation meeting after over 200 cabin crew at Air India Express started reporting “sick” from May 6 resulting in flight disruptions.

In one of the letters addressed to a cabin crew late on May 8 informing him of his immediate termination, the airline said, “Your act of reporting sick for work amounts to a concerted action with a common understanding to not operate the flight and disrupt services of the company. This is not only in violation of the applicable laws but also violates the Air India Express Limited Employees’ Service Rules.”

The Air India Express cabin crew are unhappy over “preferential treatment” for employees of the erstwhile AirAsia India resulting in certain postings granted to the latter. They also complained about unfair contractual terms which offered Air India Express an employment of one or five years, while those from AirAsia India could remain employed till they turned 58 years. They also rued removal of certain allowances including, House Rent Allowance, Dearness Allowance, among others. Air India and its low-cost international airline Air India Express were privatised in 2022 and handed over to Tata Sons. The conglomerate already owned Vistara and AirAsia India and decided to carve out two airlines of the total four it now owned by merging Air India and Vistara as well as Air India Express with AirAsia India.

Air India has been a CFM customer since 2002 when it began operating A320 neo aircraft powered by CFM56-5B engines.
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

Air India and CFM International have finalised the order for LEAP engines for the carrier’s new fleet of 400 narrow-body planes.

The engines will power 210 Airbus A320/A321 neo and 190 Boeing 737 MAX family aircraft.

“Both companies also signed a multi-year services agreement that will cover the airline’s entire fleet of LEAP engines,” CFM said in a release on Thursday.

The order was first announced in February.

Air India has been a CFM customer since 2002 when it began operating A320 neo aircraft powered by CFM56-5B engines.

In 2017, the airline began operating the A320 neo, becoming the first LEAP-1A-powered operator in India. The airline currently has 27 LEAP-1A-powered A320neo family aircraft in its fleet, the release said.

Air India CEO and MD Campbell Wilson said, “We are delighted to celebrate with CFM a major deal that will play a key role in our future development.”

CFM International President and CEO Gaël Méheust said the order strengthens its presence in India.

Earlier this year, Air India placed orders for 470 aircraft, including 70 wide-body ones. CFM International is an equal joint venture between GE Aerospace and Safran Aircraft Engines.

By the end of December 2023, Mumbai would have an equal number of domestic departures as Delhi which currently has 78 daily domestic departures. File

Notwithstanding the uncertainty over the brand name continuing after its merger with Air India by April 2024, Vistara, the joint venture of Tata Sons & Singapore Airlines (SIA), continues to scale up its operations, mostly from Mumbai. 

The airline’s CEO said more international flights would be operated from Mumbai, which has become Vistara’s sizeable hub, in the coming months as more aircraft join the fleet.

“Mumbai will remain a focus of growth because we have added so much domestic capacity to help grow our international connections,” said CEO Vinod Kannan. “Today, we operate 12 international flights from Mumbai as compared with 7 from Delhi and more international flights will be added from Mumbai in the coming months,” he added.

He said Vistara, which currently has 54 daily domestic departures from Mumbai, will increase the number of departures to 67 from August. By the end of December 2023, Mumbai would have an equal number of domestic departures as Delhi which currently has 78 daily domestic departures. 

Vistara will add 10 more aircraft including three Boeing 787s by March 2024 to take the fleet size to 70 by the time of merger. And most of these aircraft will be deployed in the international sector including Europe, Mr. Kannan said.

Stating that a consultant had been onboarded for the branding part of the combined entity, and no decision had been taken on the future of brand Vistara, he said, “We continue to do what we do best. We will continue to add destinations, aircraft and celebrate the wins.”

“We have not paused or taken a breather. Ultimately, we have to come up to certain level where the combined entity can together move to the next level,”

He said the airline was on track for the merger and various approvals were being received. He said out of the four airlines of the Tata Group, only two Air Operator Certificates (AOC) would be retained, one for the full-service carrier and the other for the low-cost carrier. 

“Whether there would be a sub-brand or there will be a merger of the brands and whether there will be one brand, these are still being discussed,” he said.

“But in the aviation context there are not so many examples of people running sub brands successfully and doing well. So, as much as we love our brand, these things are important,” he added.

An Air India passenger aircraft taxis on the tarmac while another one lands at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai, India, May 3, 2023. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas
| Photo Credit: FRANCIS MASCARENHAS

Crumbling seats, broken armrests, and dysfunctional seat-back entertainment screens on Air India’s aircraft often make the airline a subject of passenger ire but a massive repair and revamp exercise is afoot under which 40% seats across its wide-body and narrow-body planes have already been repaired since the Tata take-over last January.

The airline has also committed over $400 million for brand-new interiors for its entire legacy wide-body fleet comprising 27 Boeing 787-8s and 13 Boeing 777 aircraft and the first revamped aircraft will be ready by mid-2024.

“The job has started, but there is a lot of lead time,” says Air India’s Chief Technical Officer, Sisira Kanta Dash, in an interview to The Hindu.

Engineering modifications to aircraft interiors are carried out only after obtaining approvals from Indian and foreign regulators as the refurbishment exercise can result in crucial changes to aircraft weight.

In the meantime, the airline is focused on repairing broken aircraft furniture.

“Say our seats are 12 years old. The manufacturer is not producing the same seats anymore, and neither are spares available. Take, for instance, reclination actuators. If they are not being manufactured, the only solution is to repair them. But many vendors are not available to repair because even spares are not available,” explains Mr. Dash. So, Tata Sons- owned Air India is now seeking help from another group entity, Tata Technologies, for 3-D printing of small spare parts to make seats serviceable.

He explains that since the Tatas bought the airline from the government in January 2022, as many as 40% seats on a total of 141 aircraft, comprising wide-bodies and narrow-bodies, have been repaired. He also claims that 99% in-flight entertainment screens on business class and first class seats and 90% on economy seats have also been fixed. Re-carpeting of all planes, barring two wide-bodies, has also been achieved.

However, complaints still persist.

“If we have released an aircraft from here, when it returns, we will find something not working. We try to ensure 100% serviceability for business and first-class out of the base. That is the target, and we are more or less able to achieve that,” Mr. Dash noted.

These works will continue alongside the induction of new planes from the 470-aircraft order placed with Airbus and Boeing earlier this year among which the wide-bodies arriving this year include six A350s.