New Delhi: Interesting tales spread on the net about some of India’s air carriers have triggered breaking headlines, although not many have cared to sift through the clouds to see reasons behind such tales.
Indian aviation’s biggest gossip tales started with an interesting survey that is doing the rounds. It says many passengers are avoiding booking flights on Indian airlines due to safety reasons. Worse, another 18%, 12% and 8% said they avoid booking or are averse to booking on three other airlines as they think these airlines are “unsafe”.
Political cognoscenti in India are already wondering whether there is any airline in the country that is “safe” to travel on.
This is not all. The surveyor further claimed that many of the respondents chose more than one option in the survey and hence the total does not equate to 100%,signalling that many are of the view that multiple airlines in India are “unsafe”.
At the same time, Twitterati went overboard when a SpiceJet flight was diverted to Karachi last week. So why this sudden attention on one airline that diverted out of abundant precaution—something encouraged by aviation regulators and pilots across the globe?
Who stands to gain from branding all Indian airlines as “unsafe” and pointing fingerand pressuring the Director General Civil Aviation (DGCA) to act? Who is fanning this fire, ask top officials of the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Some of the ministry officials told this reporter that the kind of incidents being talked about are routine across industry and do not compromise on safety and airworthiness.
In fact, the DGCA has on record told reporters that, “On average about 30 incidents do take place, including go-around, missed approaches, diversion, medical emergencies, weather, technical and bird hits. Most of them have no safety implications. On the contrary they are sine qua non of a robust safety management system.”
Ministry officials say India has a robust safety mechanism. There have been no major incidents in the recent past. The DGCA has been audited by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the United States FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) which keeps a hawk eye on Indian carriers.
It is, however, well known that in a fiercely competitive environment like India, airlines can rise only if an incumbent falls. It happened when Kingfisher and Jet Airways were grounded.
This reporter did a random check with all airlines to check if indeed flyers were avoiding them. SpiceJet said it was flying with record load factors (occupancy), as did Indigo, Vistara and Air India and the rest—there was absolutely no impact on their bookings.
“We have had the highest occupancy among all Indian carriers for seven years now. We have been running a safe airline for 17 years. The DGCA had only last month audited all our aircraft and found them to be absolutely safe,” a SpiceJet official said.
“Safety experts would corroborate that a bird hit isn’t the airline’s fault. It happens all the time with all airlines. Similarly, a crack on the outer layer of the windshield isn’t a safety hazard as there are multiple layers of windshield that allow the aircraft to carry on with its journey,” the airline said.
“We are the largest airline in the country and have been flying with healthy load factors for many years. This scare mongering is very unfortunate,” said an IndiGo official.
“Our flights are absolutely safe. We are an IATA-IOSA certified airline. SpiceJet successfully completed the meticulous audit program for recertification in October 2021. We have been regularly audited by DGCA. All flights of SpiceJet are conducted in compliance with the applicable regulations of the DGCA Civil Aviation Regulations on the subject.”
Airlines said they won’t comment on bogus surveys and give them credibility. “Such tactics have been used often. That’s the only way you attract flyers,” said an industry insider.