Improving State of Aviation in India

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1 Improving State of Aviation in India Collective inputs from over 195,000 Citizens in circle Transform India with Narendra Modi (Current state, Issues, Root Causes and Proposed Solutions) March 11, 2015

2 Improving State of Aviation in India Executive Summary By 2034, India is expected to be among the top five air domestic travel markets globally, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Aircraft movements, passengers and freight at all Indian airports are expected to grow at a rate of 4.2 per cent, 5.3 per cent and 5 per cent, respectively, for the next five years, according to estimates by Airports Authority of India (AAI). Having stated all these facts, the current on-ground operations leave much to be desired by the passengers. The 195,000+ strong Transform India with Narendra Modi online community has come together to collectively identify the key issues, root causes and solutions for the betterment of the State of Aviation/Airlines in India and the community expects that the Government will work towards implementing the identified solutions. Issues Identified: 1. Poor and arrogant services by the crew 2. Employees of some airlines and very inefficient 3. Airlines ignore safety standards for travellers 4. Airfares increase fares many folds during vacation season and last minute travel 5. Taxes and surcharges on tickets are highest in the world 6. Many flights get delayed 7. Passengers are kept waiting at airport without any information 8. Airlines offer cheap tickets and then cut corners in delivering services 9. Food stalls at the airport are very expensive 10. Over-priced food and water inside the planes 11. Cramped seating in budget carriers 12. Over booking of flights on popular routes 13. Unfriendly attitude of the crew 14. Insufficient arrangement for physically challenged 15. The delays/cancellations and poor notification mechanism 16. Baggage delays/loss are common and at times belongings are stolen from the bag Root Causes Identified: 1. There is an increasing competition between airlines 2. Many Low Cost Carriers have emerged over the last few years 3. Increased air traffic has resulted in busy airports and delayed flights 2 P a g e E n g a g i n g C i t i z e n s i n G o v e r n a n c e

3 4. Inadequate infrastructure at the airports and poor maintenance standards 5. Being in a Government job, the employees of Air India have a lack-lustre attitude 6. Employees lack professionalism 7. Rent for the food stalls at the airports are very high and hence the cost flows into the final price of the food 8. Budget carriers try to install maximum number of seats inside the plate 9. Low Cost carriers are mostly no frills carriers 10. Long and erratic work hours hamper the attitude of the crew 11. At times, many passengers get unruly 12. Lack of awareness on part of the consumer 13. Consumer protection and redressal is very poor 14. No recognition for the airlines who show On Time Performance for a long time 15. Airlines try to cash in on the demand during festive season 16. Airport utilisation is not the most efficient in India 17. Airlines are charged royalty for vendor services on airport premises 18. Political pressure leads to delay in flight take-off and undue subsidization 19. Inefficiencies of Air India and subsidization by the Government are affecting the whole industry negatively Solutions Identified: 1. Crew members should be regularly trained on customer service 2. Yearly reviews of the Air India employees should be performance based 3. All safety standards should be strictly adhered to as per international standards 4. The regulatory bodies should put a cap on the highest and lowest fare on a particular route 5. Passengers should be remunerated in case of a flight delay beyond a certain time 6. It should be the duty of the airline to keep the passengers updated with their flight status 7. Authorities should make sure that the services are not cut on the discounted fare offers sold to customers 8. Budget food stalls should also be opened on airports 9. Over booking of the flight should be strictly taken up by the regulatory bodies 10. Proper arrangements should be made for the physically challenged 11. Airport infrastructure on the non-metro airports should be improved 12. Consumers should be made aware of their rights as a traveller 13. Consumer complaint redressal should be quick and appropriate 14. Airline which shows the best On Time Performance should be awarded by the Ministry 15. Taxes should be rationalised 3 P a g e E n g a g i n g C i t i z e n s i n G o v e r n a n c e

4 16. Rationalize salaries in the sector to reduce the cost to the common man 17. Taxes on aviation fuel and services should be reduced 18. All subsidies to Air India must stop 19. Air India should be privatized Governments job is to govern, not run businesses 20. DGCA should take speedy decisions on licensing of operators State of Aviation/Airlines in India a few citizen posts and comments: 1. When people want to travel during holidays airlines hike their prices S. Seetharamaiah 2. At present air travel mode cannot be used by many of Indians. Mostly people use this mode for official traveling or luxurious class traveling. As our journey to infrastructure development every district headquarters must have air connection. These district headquarters shall be connected to state level air ports. Helicopters & small planes to fly between district ports to state ports with economy rates. Need for big runways & large infrastructure can be avoided. Big states can have more than one state airport Chandrashekhar Sathe 3. Well most of the issues are due to poor infrastructure and high taxation on airlines which make it infeasible to operate and become commercially viable. Secondly with reference to overbooking and increasing fares during season, that is how the business works and they are international practices well accepted globally. The costs of overbookings are evaluated whilst taking the decision. Also, if the business environment becomes conducive wherein the airlines can make money, they will also move up in the value chain and put more focus on the customers. We must improve the infrastructure, remove archaic laws and improve our tax structure especially for fuel and raising funds for aircraft acquisition Kashyap Mansata 4. Impractical business Model. Impractically high Salaries. If it wants to be mass, it has to provide last mile connectivity. The origin and final destination data of traveller need to be mapped and priority given to start airlines operations in those cities/airports.i.e. Agra - Chandigarh. Connectivity of hills and northeast needs to improve drastically to improve penetration, tourism, reduce pollution, environmental damages Gaurav Chibber 5. As A responsible citizen, One should be able to evaluate, what should be the cost of travelling by air vis a vis Road route or by train before falling prey to economical fare campaigns run by Service providers. Secondly, the regulatory authority should make it transparent the cost of route to citizens aircraft wise, so that passengers won t mind paying that cost, today there is no transparency Mohit Kumar 6. Domestic aviation needs cheaper flights...atf is major factor behind high air fare. Government want to promote tourism make airlines operational cost below 25% and cut higher air fare. Regularity authority to control air fare...thanks and hotel rates to cut down Gautam Pandey 4 P a g e E n g a g i n g C i t i z e n s i n G o v e r n a n c e

5 7. Government should bring some rules and amendments to bring aviation section more decency, courteousness and quality which is presentable for the people of India as well as our visitors guest Sanjiv Rao 8. We need more domestic airports for faster connectivity within India. People are willing to spent money if facilities are available - Surya Kant Sharma 9. Aviation/ Airlines plays important role to improve any state or any country. Any country does not improve their infrastructure without the improvement of aviation sector. It is right that, if this sector (Airlines / Aviation Sector) will improve then our communication, our infrastructure will also improve. So we need to look into this mater urgently. In that case Government have required observing some policy & role and also implementing such policy by which that sector will be benefited. For instance, all standard Airport should be require International airport provision, number of employees in the airports should be sufficient, departure & Arrival Timing should be punctual, no harassment to passenger, flight fare should be minimize and also it should be control etc. Biswajit Paul 5 P a g e E n g a g i n g C i t i z e n s i n G o v e r n a n c e