We could have handled delays better: Air India CEO Wilson
DUBAI: Following long delays, cancellations and technical glitches involving several Air India flights in the past week, chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director (MD) Campbell Wilson said the airline could have better handled this ‘unusual combination of events”.
On May 31 the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) issued a show-cause notice to Air India for inordinate delays of at least two international flights—AI 183 from Delhi to San Francisco on May 30 and AI 179 from Mumbai to San Francisco on May 24—and its failure to take care of passengers. Then on 2 June, an Air India flight from Delhi to Vancouver took off after a nearly 22-hour delay. More than 50 passengers of this flight protested against the airline inside the terminal.
In the case of the Delhi-San Francisco flight, Wilson said an auxiliary unit that was meant to power the plane’s air-conditioning had stopped working. The alternative, a jet starter unit was unable to generate enough power to start the aircraft’s engines. This was partly due to the extreme heat in Delhi, where temperatures have approached 50 degrees Celsius this summer.
A few hours later, the aircraft returned to the bay for some angry passengers to deplane. When it started to taxi again, the replacement jet starter unit also proved ineffective, forcing the plane to return once again and offload more passengers.
Wilson told Mint on the sidelines of the 80th annual general meeting of the International Air Transport Association (Iata), “...by the time you get to San Francisco, they’re not going to be on duty, so you won’t be able to offload the passengers. Then, you have to cancel the flight. There are a lot of circumstances that lead to this – technical issues with the aircraft, technical issues with the ground handling units that are supplied by third parties, the capability of the air conditioning at the airport, the temperature in Delhi, and the wish of some people not to travel.”
“Our people need to be able to handle that better. So, whether it’s better compensation or better communication, there are things that we can learn to do better. But, it is an extremely unusual situation,” he added.
In the case of the delayed Delhi-Vancouver flight, Wilson blamed state-run Air India Engineering Services Ltd (AIESL) for delivering an unfit aircraft. The airline was forced to cancel the flight after an inspection revealed that the plane lacked a nozzle, essential for filling drinking water.
(The reporter was in Dubai at the invitation of IATA)