India 360: 'Cheap' budget airlines

New Delhi: A booming aviation industry, a plethora of low cost airlines, but no corresponding increase in infrastructure - low cost airlines are now cutting corners even compromising on passenger safety at times, as exposed by the CNN-IBN Special Investigation on Air Deccan.

It seems that as the existing infrastructure struggles to cope with the booming aviation industry, customer satisfaction has become a casualty of no-frills flying.

Over the last three days CNN-IBN aired a series of reports that exposed how Air Deccan used underhanded methods to boost its bottom line. The first report showed how the airline overbooked on their flights and regularly off-loaded passengers with no explanations and no refunds.

As a direct impact of that report, the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has confirmed that they will look into the charges saying that if this is true it is a gross violation of rules. Air Deccan officials though have been maintaining that the discrepancy was actually a systems error. They have said that they are open to any audit and gladly welcome the DGCA probe.

The question that was being debated on India 360 was: Are low cost carriers compromising with the safety of the passengers?

On the panel of experts to try and answer the question were National Secretary Air Passengers Association of India, Hiren Shah and MD, GO Air, Jeh Wadia.

Are low cost airlines compromising on the safety of passengers?

On being asked if the CNN-IBN report did surprise him at all, or whether it was one of the worst-kept secrets of the phenomena called low cost flying, Hiren Shah said, “It is definitely surprising news though we have seen this happening a couple of times before. In Maharashtra we have taken steps to ensure that low cost airlines take care of the safety of the passengers is the foremost concern and use the technology to the best possible extent.”

Shah also said that such incidents have occurred in the past as well.

CNN-IBN spoke to a passengers at the Mumbai airport, who said that they had been been waiting for over four hours at the airport.

An irate passenger said that he had been waiting to collect a litter of six-week old puppies who had been booked at the Calcutta airport and were supposed to reach Mumbai airport by the 1600 hours flight. However, he was told that the flight never took off.

He said he was frantic that the puppies would not get food and water for nearly 24 hours because of the delay and added that whenever he would go to the counter to ask for information, all that the staff would say was, "we don't know the status of the flight".

The situation epitomizes what really is happening with the aviation industry today. The aforementioned incident is not that of a low cost carrier but it was an Air Sahara flight from Calcutta to Mumbai, which was supposed to take off in the morning but did not land even till 20:30 IST hours in the night.

The easy- going attitude of airlines and airport authorities throws away passengers’ concerns. Even basic care seems to have become a casualty of the low frill flying phenomena.

Need for a customer redressal forum?

Somehow low cost carriers seem to have an easy-going, everything is going to be okay attitude, simply because they are "no-frills flying" airlines. Clearly customer satisfaction is not anywhere on their agenda. Even basic care seems to be lost because of their attitude. Is there a redressal forum for customers of low budget airlines?

To this Hiren Shah said, "At times a customer satisfaction is needed much more than what these airlines prefer to give. However, the fact is that most of these airlines are running on constraints - there are less number of aircrafts, there is an urgency to cover more destinations so there are more flights to manage, their inability to use technology to keep passengers informed and there are no inter-airline arrangement where they can allow passengers to board other flights in case of emergency. There are a lot of areas that these airlines need to work on."

The problem is not specific to Air Deccan so an inter-airline arrangement, as Shah suggests, seems to be the perfect solution.

Low cost airlines have brought about an unprecedented growth in Indian aviation. The sector is growing from about 25 per cent every year out of which low cost airlines command about 40 per cent of the market share. But, this boom without the right infrastructural support could be turning low cost airlines into customer unfriendly monsters.

Cutting costs at the passenger's cost

All low cost airlines virtually fly to the same airports in any given destination. The airport charges are the same as is the aviation fuel cost. Does cost-cutting then mean that the passenger is the ultimate casualty?

Jeh Wadia did not agree with this point and said that due to higher utilisation, Internet booking and no free food, low cost airlines are able to ensure a 30 per cent cost differentiation to a full service carrier.

"Ideally we should be close to a 55-60 per cent cost differentiation. How we intend to make up the difference is by outsourcing services such as engineering, ground handling and security. Because we have to do this internally right now, we have this deficit of about 25-30 per cent," he said.

He said that they hope to make up this deficit in the next couple of months with low cost airlines coming up with this new outsourcing policy soon. However, he reiterated that ultimately, no compromise will be made as to the kind of service provided by the airlines to passengers.

Are budget airlines woefully understaffed?

Recently, there was an incident involving GoAir where a 120 passengers were stranded for 18 long hours at the Bangalore airport because of lack of staff. Eventually, an apology was rendered to the irate passengers as there was no one from the GoAir staff team to attend to them. So are budget airlines woefully understaffed?

Jeh Wadia chose to circumvent the issue saying that the delay was not 18 hours, it was a nine hour delay and that too due to fog.

"The delay had nothing to do with us. Fog is something that we cannot control. We decided to take off eventually, despite knowing the fog situation in the interest of the passengers. Then we had to turn back because of the excess fog," he said.

Even as Jeh Wadia was speaking, CNN-IBN was at the Bangalore airport and had witnessed a huge fight at the GoAir counter there.

A passenger waiting for a GoAir flight alleged that the airlines always kept changing timings. He said that there was no one to solve their problems, there was no forum where they could air their woes and that everyone was completely harassed.

Is there a need for a super-regulator?

One of the major problems that passengers face is dissemination of information from budget airlines, due to lack of staff at their call centres.

Also airlines are not refunding ticket money in case of cancellation. Is there any scope for improvement in these areas?

Jeh Wadia admitted that there were some infrastructural and policy issues and that it would take some time for these to improve.

"The demand in the aviation industry has gone up from four to six per cent to a historic 50 per cent. We have stimulated demand and are ensuring that more and more people fly but there are bound to be certain hiccups along the way. We should be accommodating of these and be patient and wait for things to change gradually," he said.

Hiren Shah added that civic-activism in this case was not what would help solve some of the problems that passengers of budget airlines are facing.

He said that there was a need for a regulatory body and that the Air Passengers Association has been very vocal about this. But he added that till the authorities respond, passengers must bring their problems to the notice of the Government and other authorities.

The two ended the debate on the same note saying that low cost airlines have certainly made flying very democratic, but there are still a number of issues that have to be urgently addressed and resolved.

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