Yesterday (Sunday, 14th January 2024) was one of the toughest days for Indian aviation. Delhi – the aviation hub of India – as well as many cities across Indian were blanketed in thick fog for several hours, leading to chaos at airports all over the country. Indian airlines are not that good when it comes to communicating with passengers in situations like flight delays. This needs to change.
A tough day
Many cities in India, including the main aviation hub of Delhi, along with cities like Chennai, were covered in thick fog. This led to major delays and cancellations of flights across India. Delhi Airport was not operational for several hours. The main runway at Delhi Airport, runway 10/28, has been under maintenance since December last year, with resumption date getting postponed multiple times. Delhi airport was operating with three runways, including a single CAT III runway, however, with reduced capacity.
Whenever something goes wrong in Delhi, it has a ripple effect on flights across the country, as most airlines have their main hub at Delhi. The situation was so bad that an Air India B787-8 Dreamliner had to wait for 2 hours and 27 minutes for a parking bay after landing in Delhi, as all the parking bays were occupied, with aircraft not being able to takeoff and occupying the parking bays that otherwise would have been vacant, had these flights took off.
Indian actor Ranvir Shorey posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) about his experience with IndiGo on his flight yesterday. His flight was due to depart at 1400 hours. Upon reaching the airport, he was informed that the flight is delayed by 3 hours due to bad weather, with new departure time of 1700 hours. At 1700 hours, the departure time was again pushed to 2000 hours. He enquired with the gate agent and he “personally” assured him that the flight will for sure depart at 2000 hours. Fast forward to 2000 hours and the flight’s departure time was pushed to 2100 hours. Finally, the aircraft took off around midnight.
Ranvir was one of the many passengers who were affected by flight delays. The major reason for these delays was bad weather (fog).
A passenger attacks captain on an IndiGo flight
A passenger on an IndiGo flight scheduled to fly from Delhi to Goa punched the captain making an announcement about the flight’s delay.
The passenger was later handed over to the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) team. The passenger was seen apologising to the captain when he was handed over to the CISF team.
Many on Twitter exclaimed their emotions after this incident went viral, with them saying that the passenger should immediately be put on the No-Fly list.
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Airlines should start communicating better
Indian airlines are not the best at clearly communicating with passengers. In situations like that of yesterday, it’s not in the hand of airlines when it comes to weather delays. Airlines can’t do anything in front of Mother Nature showing its power.
In the United States for example, airlines clearly state the reason in case of a flight delay most of the times. But Indian airlines are not the best communicators. When airlines clearly state the reason for delay, it ensures that the transparency between the passengers and the airline remains intact and passengers have a better idea of the situation.
The major complain from passengers yesterday was that they were not informed of the delay until they reached the airport. Surely, the weather is unpredictable and can change anytime but on a day when the weather department had issued a red alert, airlines should have been more proactive in informing passengers beforehand. Cancelling flights beforehand can be done in situations when heavy rains or snow is expected, but fog is something which can’t be predicted. On the other hand, if flights were in fact cancelled and there was no fog, airlines would end up loosing millions of rupees.
Another type of complain from passengers was that they were made to board the aircraft and sit for multiple hours, waiting for take off clearance. According to the Indian Ministry of Civil Aviation, airlines are supposed to let passengers off after a maximum of 4 hours onboard if there is no clarity on departure time. However, the aircraft needs to be parked at a gate or a parking bay. They can’t be disembarked on a taxiway.
If passengers are disembarked, India requires all of them to go through the arrival area and clear the security checks again and then proceed to the departures area where they can wait for the weather to clear. What this means is that if the weather clears when the passengers are going through all the airport procedures again, the flight can lose its departure slot. In the United States, passengers can just “reverse board” and directly enter the departures area, not having to go through security again.
It’s not airlines’ fault
Weather issues can be faced by any airline in the world. They are not responsible for delays caused by the weather. What airlines can indeed do is start communicating better and make passengers aware of what is causing their flight getting delayed.
On the other hand, passengers need to be ready to face delays when travelling by flight. Passengers should treat the customer facing employees, including the cabin crew and gate agents, with utmost respect. They should not lose their cool, and ATTACKING AN AIRLINE EMPLOYEE IS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE, WHATEVER THE CASE MAY BE! Those doing so should be held responsible for their actions.
Featured image by TravelObiz
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