NEW DELHI: In less than a year of taking over Air India, Tata Sons have made the Maharaja the most punctual domestic airline. In its government-owned days, cash-starved AI used to be at the bottom of the monthly on time performance (OTP) figures issued by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for several years.
DGCA data for domestic air traffic in October, 2022, shows three Tata airlines occupy the top OTP slots — AI (90.8%), and Vistara and AirAsia India (both 89.1%).
What once used to be India’s most punctual airline, IndiGo, comes after these three Tata carriers with 87.5% of its domestic flights leaving on time. The fourth Tata airline, AI Express, essentially operates international flights.
A flight is considered punctual if it leaves within 15 minutes of its scheduled time. The DGCA issues OTP figures based on flights from the four metro airports of Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Both IndiGo and GoAir have dozens of their aircraft grounded due to Pratt & Whitney’s inability to supply engines and/or engine components. GoAir has been at the bottom of punctuality charts for some time now, with October seeing 60.7% of its flights leave on time as per the DGCA data.
The Tatas have invested to make several long-grounded AI aircraft fly again. While facing supply chain constraints, they are trying to build a backup of spares and components to minimise grounding time after an aircraft/engine suffers a snag. There is a strict check list of things to be completed in T-x number of minutes (T being scheduled departure time) like boarding, ground staff to leave aircraft and doors closed so that the plane is ready to leave on time. Crew now has to report in time.
“Every delay is examined and report sent to MD-CEO Campbell Wilson. No department wants to be found responsible for a behind schedule departure. So everyone is putting their best foot forward,” said a person in the know.
Meanwhile, festive October 2022 saw 1.1 crore people fly within India — up 27% from 89.8lakh in same month last year. IndiGo remained the domestic market leader with 56.7% market share last month. While Vistara and Air India were a distant second and third at 9.2% and 9.1% respectively, the combined domestic market share of the three Tata airlines (including AirAsia India and excluding AI Express which essentially operates international flights) was 25.8% last month. Tatas are eyeing 30% market share for the combined AI they are creating that will have both a full service arm — Maharaja (by merging Vistara into it) — and a budget arm — AI Express(by merging AirAsia India into it).
