NEW DELHI: Poor staff management continues to hit Tata Group-run airlines, leaving thousands of passengers stranded at airports. After last month's fiasco at Vistara, now Air India Express was forced to cancel more than 90 international and domestic flights from Tuesday evening to Wednesday night.
The cancellation came after a section of senior crew members, who allege mismanagement at the airline, went on a "mass sick leave".
Going ahead, flight disruption is expected to continue for some time at the low-cost carrier.
Air India Express CEO Aloke Singh, in an address to employees on Wednesday, said that since last evening, over a hundred of their cabin crew colleagues have reported sick prior to their rostered flight duty, at the last minute, severely disrupting our operations. Because this action was mostly by colleagues assigned L1 role, the impact was disproportionate, disrupting 90+ flights even though other colleagues reported for duty, added Singh.
“The disruptions have cascaded across the network, forcing us to curtail the schedules over the next few days. We had to do this to cope with the non-availability of crew and to recover schedules...A curtailed schedule is being rolled-out for the next few days,” said Singh.
Discontent has been brewing among a section of the cabin crew at Air India Express for some time now, especially after the start of the process of merger of AIX Connect, formerly AirAsia India, with itself. The dispute is said to have its roots in a new merit-based assessment system for employees.
Late last month, a group of Air India Express cabin crew had alleged that the airline is being mismanaged and there is a lack of equality in the treatment of the staff. They also complained about nepotism when it comes to promotion and impromptu termination of senior employees. Air India Express Employees Union (AIXEU), which has around 300 cabin crew members, on April 26 wrote a letter addressed to Tata Group and Air India Chairman N Chandrasekaran.
The grievances of the staff were supported by the Regional Labour Commissioner of New Delhi, Ashok Perumalla, who pointed out "blatant violations of labour laws" at the airline. Stating that the concerns of the Union are genuine, Perumulla on May 3 wrote in a mail directed to Chandrasekaran, "The management of Air India Express has not sent any responsible decision-makers to any of the conciliation proceedings. Mismanagement and blatant violations of labour laws were apparent."
Singh, in his mail to employees, said that if there are concerns that need to be addressed, the company leadership is available for any discussions. All comms channels remain open - departmental townhalls (one pre-scheduled for tomorrow), monthly all-hands townhall, besides formal and informal reach out to leaders, he added.
Meanwhile, many passengers took to social media on Wednesday complaining about the sudden cancellation of flights. There were visuals of mass chaos at airports across the country. Former Jammu and Kashmir CM Ghulam Nabi Azad, who got stuck after his Delhi-Srinagar Air India Express flight got cancelled, said, “Air India should be shut down again. It has a bad culture.” Air India was handed over to the Tatas in January 2022.
Following the uproar, the Ministry of Civil Aviation called for a report from Air India Express regarding the cancellation of flights, and asked them to resolve issues promptly.
The fresh trouble at a Tata group airline comes soon after another group airline -Vistara - faced a similar situation. The full-service carrier was forced to cancel 10% of its daily flights in April (25-30 flights per day) to normalise operation. Vistara took this decision following a shortage of pilots who started reporting sick leaves in the first week of April to show their dissatisfaction towards a revised salary structure “forced upon them”.
