Fastest growing aviation space of India is facing series of technical glitch due to lack of financial stability

India’s aviation space is facing technical obstruction lately. In the month of July, 15 technical snags were reported within two weeks that disturbed civilians travelling in every corner. Farhan was travelling from Delhi to Dubai last month, and was interrupted by one of this problem. He said, ‘I was travelling in SpiceJet to Dubai to meet my ill sister. The moment plane landed; we were told to sit for another one hour because a technical glitch was discovered in its nose wheel. I was already late and this just added on to my mess’. This is not the first time when people have experienced series of complication after boarding a flight.

According to the information, around 1000 passengers filed complaints against Air India Airlines in the period of three months this year. Ministry of Civil Aviation cleared, the complaints they received were about fight issues, refund of fares, baggage issues, staff behavior etc. Survey taken by Bloomberg said, India’s flying space service for civilians has dropped down since the pandemic. Specifically, when it comes to the customer service and staff behavior. Around 79% of the respondents mentioned about airlines compromising passengers’ comfort, after the surge of Covid 19. Concluding SpiceJet service as the most unsatisfactory, followed by Indigo, complaints included flight delays, failed boarding procedures, bad in-flight services and ragged aircraft interiors.

Yashraj Tongia is a former director of Flying training of DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation), India. He is a commercial pilot and renowned Aviation lawyer, who has trained more than 800 commercial pilots. He commented on the current series of technical glitch in civil flights and said, ‘The financial stress that airlines were under the past two years has started unravelling certain aspects of operations. As the DGCA recent review pointed out, a number of domestic flights are being released under MEL. Dearth of spare parts, lack of skilled manpower, lower training standards have all contributed to the rise in technical issues. But most of these issues concern only one carrier which has been in the red for a while now. The regulator has curtailed its flight operations to 50%. As far as other carriers are concerned, the technical issues being reported are well within the laid down standards.’

Stating financial strain as a reason behind the disturbance, he told EAT news, where Indian Aviation is lacking. ‘Currently, high ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) prices is the chief cause of concern. In the year’s administration budget airlines were expecting a cut in excise duty on ATF but that didn’t happen. ATF too hasn’t been brought under the ambit of GST yet though fuel constitutes more than 40 per cent of operating costs for airlines. Airlines in India are on a fleet expansion spree, lack of skilled labor will be another concern’, he said. In further addition, ‘Airport infrastructure constraints is another aspect that needs work. India’s second busiest airport, Mumbai for instance, was congested pre pandemic. It operates out of a single runway. Traffic growth has been severely constrained due to that’ said Tongia.

On asking, which decisions taken by administration has helped in booming the sector, Tongia believes privatization is one of them. He said, ‘The biggest decision of the year was Air India privatization. Due to the pandemic, the administration was forced to repeatedly extend the deadline for submitting bids, but eventually this came through in January 2022.’ Policies encouraging development and use of drones which has a regional connectivity scheme that encourages airlines to fly into mofussil towns, domestic capacity and fares caps introduced in May 2020 benefitted carriers, were mentioned by him.

Indian aviation market is fastest growing aviation market in the world. Backing the statement, Tongia said, ‘India’s domestic air travel market had registered a straight double-digit growth every consecutive month for about 55 months up to April 2019. No other country has that record. Then in April 2019, Jet Airways suspended operations and the next year pandemic hit, both slow down the growth. But Aircraft manufactures have projected South Asian airlines to lead air traffic growth rates through 2040 with a 6.9 per cent annual growth, the region’s fleet is set to quadruple by 2040. India represents 90 per cent of the South Asian market.’

Yogesh Tongia shared exact numbers with EAT news that for about Rs 19,564 crore and Rs 5,116 crore estimated loss was borne by Indian airlines and airports in 2020-21. The traffic recovery began early this year with reopening of international flights in March end. ‘But summer 2022 didn’t see much pick-up in international passenger traffic due to visa procurement delays and secondly high fuel prices brought on by the Russia-Ukraine situation. On the domestic front, the second half of calendar 2022 signals the onset of festive season in India and is expected to see a rise’, he said. Indian aviation still has to wait to see a jump in its global ranking. According to Tongia, ‘Of the 1.38 billion people in India, only 4% buys air ticket and so the potential for growth is massive. Currently, India is the third largest aviation market in the world with over 440 million passengers. But US, the second largest market has 1.1 billion passengers. So, it will be a while before India climbs up in rank.’