Many Indians apparently do not feel safe while flying with domestic airlines in India. This comes on the heels of the country’s aviation regulator repeatedly pulling up almost all pan-national airline companies on multiple safety violations.
Domestic airlines have been penalised for multiple crore rupees on various counts by the regulator DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) over the past year. The fines peaked last winter at about a whopping Rs 3 crore as fog threw schedules into disarray and cancellations and delays were reported from across the country.
The culprits even included the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, where delayed passengers plonked down on the tarmac to eat their food. Those fined for the chaos that followed fog delays also included low-cost carriers like Indigo and SpiceJet.
With winter on and fog days enveloping us any day now, the question is, will the previous winter’s mayhem, which saw hundreds of thousands inconvenienced and even incidents of violence where frustrated passengers hit pilots, repeat?
Now, a survey amongst desi fliers finds that many do feel that domestic airline companies do not pay enough attention to safety. A LocalCircles survey released on Monday said that 3 in every ten fliers felt that airliners were cutting corners on safety protocols since Covid.
While 18 per cent said that it was “always perfect”, a sizeable 43 per cent stated that “it was mostly fine but there have been some exceptions”. If that wasn’t worrisome, another 30 per cent said airlines were cutting corners when it came to safety, in varying degrees.
A LocalCircles statement said that while a large number of passengers felt all was well, they did not have visibility to any violation that was not customer-facing and happening at the back end.
“If those were added, the numbers would look worse,” it said, adding, “While airlines cite growth in the industry and inability of infrastructure and resources to keep up with it as the reason behind some of the issues perceived by the consumers, the reality is the airlines need to do better and the DGCA and Ministry of Civil Aviation need to hold them more accountable than they are being held today.”
In its annual safety report released two months ago, DGCA said that it had improved significantly last year compared to the previous two years. However, many airlines were fined in recent months for laxes, including repeat-offender Air India under the Tatas, whose liability peaked at Rs 1 crore plus a fine for not carrying enough emergency oxygen on its India–US routes.
New entrant Akasa was fined Rs 30 lakh in October for multiple regulatory violations. This Friday, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) cracked the whip at market leader Indigo for a security protocol breach and asked it to cough up 5 lakh rupees as a fine.
