Voices Anand Neelakantan Ravi Shankar Preeti Shenoy Dinesh Singh S Vaidhyasubramaniam Swami Sukhabodhananda MAGAZINE Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment NEW DELHI february 4 2024 SUNDAY PAGES 12 all fogged-up Bad Air Days Pay Now, Cry Later could well be the new motto of private airlines as winter fogs become the last straw that sends a system teetering on the edge into a perfect storm of high fares, poor service and low accountability I By Noor Anand Chawla f we don’t wake up, we deserve it, hai na?” That’s from a recent tweet by actor Richa Chadha after four-hour delays on two back-toback Indigo domestic flights this almost-gone winter. Chadha was dismayed enough by the delays to point her tinseltown fingers at what she sees as a virtual duopoly in India’s civil aviation sector. But she wasn’t half as devastated as Sahil Kataria who went the whole hog with fingers, balling up all five of one hand to punch an Indigo pilot after boarding his flight earlier last month. It was a regular January day in the capital city—cold, foggy, grey and miserable—made worse by the fact that this particular winter had the lowest recorded temperatures in the past 12 years. In this atmosphere, 200-odd passengers watched the clock, waiting eagerly to escape the bitter cold for the warmer climes of Goa. They had arrived in the wee hours of the morning to catch an early flight out of Indira Gandhi International Airport, hoping to make the most of their time on holiday Instead, . they spent the better part of that day at the airport. Ten hours of waiting later, they were finally let into their Indigo aircraft, only to wait two more hours in their seats. Patience was running thin as rice paper, and tempers were flaring. At this point, the pilot came out to address the passengers. His intention may have been to allay restlessness, yet perhaps reckoning with his own frustration, he used an accusatory tone with the passengers. In response, Kataria, in his now-infamous yellow hoodie, lunged at the hapless pilot. On the same spectrum, between fingers and fists, it was food. Around the same time as the punching episode, another Indigo flight, returning from Goa to Delhi, was diverted to Mumbai after severe fog-related delays. Wary of being delayed further, its passengers decided to take matters in their own hands, and parked themselves on the tarmac, pulling out bowls of food for a unique picnic. According to senior officials who investigated the matter, this happened because the passengers feared the airline may leave them behind. They reasoned that by remaining on the tarmac, the airline would not forget to fly them out. This thoughtful move, however, bypassed important security protocols besides setting a bad precedent. Chadha and Kataria are on the same side of the aviation nightmare that has unfolded across Indian airports this winter. These incidents are undoubtedly more dramatic and tweetworthy than most other flying mishaps, but they indicate that India’s private aviation industry is at a watershed moment. Are things finally going to change? As the industry grapples with extremities of behaviour—by those who buy tickets to fly, and those who operate airlines December is the Cruellest Month terminal meltdown 2,000 Passengers denied boarding 35,000 Passengers impacted by cancellations 3,64,000 Passengers affected by delays The Late, Late Show In December 2023, the on time performance (OTP) of airlines fell sharply. A snapshot of the how the airlines did: 72.7% Akasa without sharing open communication—it must be held accountable for both. Inordinate delays, haphazard cancellations, lack of sensitivity and empathy towards the other party, spiked airfares and archaic corporate rules the bear act determined by the duopoly of TATA Airlines and Indigo Airlines make things more difficult than they need to be. It’s time we stopped blaming the fog for all our woes and named the issue for what it is—time for a system overhaul. Be You Ever So High The mess enveloped everything and everybody, celebs included. Comedian Kapil Sharma was part of an Indigo flight whose passengers were left in a bus with closed doors for 50 minutes before boarding their aircraft. Once boarding was done, it was announced that the pilot hadn’t arrived as he was stuck in traffic. Actors Ranvir Shorey (on Indigo) and Jay Bhanushali (on Akasa Air) were both informed of threehour delays to their flights only after they had checked in as per their usual time. Actor Manoj Joshi’s problems didn’t end with the long delay on his Air “There is lack of decisiveness by management and ground staff who are getting younger in age. This means that the crew isn’t always sensitive to passenger concerns.” Senior official of an Indian airline India flight. Even the arrival of the baggage on the belt was delayed without explanation or ground help for over 40 minutes. While these celebrity posts on social media do get more traction, everybody seems to have a complaint related to airlines this season. Why did this happen? More accurately, why does it happen all the time? “The increased chaos in air travel this year can be attributed to a combination of three main factors,” says commercial pilot Asmita Handa. She names runway maintenance delays as the primary one. “Of the four runways available at Delhi airport, only one has been operational for the past six “Monopoly—whether in airlines, airport ownership or leadership—creates lack of accountability. Common citizens suffer, with no recourse.” Richa Chadha, actor months. The primary runway’s reopening, initially planned for December, was postponed due to the G20 summit, leading to a significant reduction in runway capacity The severe pollution .” and fog didn’t help matters either. “The air quality reached alarming levels, resulting in extremely poor visibility Even . for pilots certified for Low Visibility Operations (LVO), the requirement for take-off visibility is 125 metres. Unfortunately, the near-zero visibility conditions made take-offs impossible, even on runways equipped with CAT III (Category III) instrumentation designed for low-visibility scenarios,” Capt. Handa explains. For the uninitiated, CAT III runways are geared specifically for take-offs and landings during extreme weather conditions such as fog. In a letter written by the Delhi airport to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the delay in operationalising the main CAT III airstrip 28/10 was put down to its rehabilitation being allowed to begin only after the G20 Summit had ended. Further, construction and rehabilitation work was disrupted when GRAP IV measures were imposed in Delhi to curb pollution. Hence, the scheduled re-carpeting of this runway for December 15 became a distant dream. Given the combination of reduced runways and the inability to meet the visibility requirements, is it any surprise that airline operations were inevitably disrupted? In such circumstances, safety protocols dictated the shutdown of operations to prevent potential accidents or incidents. However, instead of choosing to cancel flights, operators opted to delay departures while keeping passengers waiting. These factors led to a higher level of chaos. The perfect storm kept growing. Even the single runway that was operational in Delhi saw disruptions when cranes deployed at the Dwarka Expressway to construct a flyover led to the runway being 70.8% Vistara 68% IndiGo 65.7% AIX Connect 52.4% Air India 29.9% SpiceJet downgraded to CAT I. Operating with a single CAT III runway 29L/11R, Delhi airport’s woes were worsened in the run-up to Republic Day when security restrictions forbade flights in and out of Delhi from January 19 to 26, between 10.20 am and 12.45 pm. This additional 2.5 hours of no flights led to the cancellation of Turn to page 2