Even if only 1-2% of flight are cancelled in a month, the number of passengers affected is mind-boggling.
Since December 2023 hundreds of cancellations and poor on-time performance of airlines have left thousands of people stranded at airports across India. Between March 31 and April 3 this year, 150 Vistara flight were cancelled and over two hours delay was experienced by about 200 flight. On May 8, Air India Express had to cancel 90 out of the total 360 flight it had scheduled for that day. Likewise, this year witnessed similar but reduced rate cancellations in many large airlines.
The recent crisis in the aviation industry has been rooted in crew shortages. For example, around “sick” status was declared by about two hundred cabin crew members from Air India Express. In addition to this, crew unavailability was also reported as a problem for Vistara. Consequently there has been a mismatch between demand and supply of crew during network expansion.
These new problems came as the aviation industry began to shake off Covid-19’s effects which resulted into record losses for all airlines. From early months till mid-2020 when airlines would not move because of suspension caused by pandemic-related issues worldwide, passenger flow ceased completely. By then airlines began receiving passengers though not full capacity owing to some restrictions due to covid protocols being observed like regular cleaning among other measures aimed at containing the virus spread. Despite that fact, salaries continued being paid by airlines and so did airport fees with aircraft and engine rentals thus consistently running at a loss. Later in 2022 when passenger flow returned to pre-COVID-19 levels aviation fuel prices skyrocketed causing distress to air carriers since transferring fuel price increase costs directly to consumers wasn’t an option here.
Chart 1 | January 2022 – March 2024: Monthly Cancellation Rate (Various Airlines)
Is it possible to remove the part of the chart marked AMP?
For instance, IndiGo cancelled 5% of its flight in January 2024, SpiceJet had 3.4% cancellations and Air India around 2%. Even in the prior month, for these airlines it ranged from 1 to 2 %.
Chart 2 | Passenger Cancellations
Even though cancellation rate might seem statistically insignificant, a huge number of passengers are affected every time a small percentage like that (1-2%) is cancelled per month. For example, between December 2023 and March 2024 alone there were as many as one hundred fifty thousand passengers who couldn’t fly due to cancellations. When an airline with many more scheduled flight than IndiGo cancels just one percent of those flight, then the number of passengers affected is much higher too. which explains the bigger boxes for IndiGo. All told, since January this year about six hundred fifty thousand consumers have been affected by cancellations.
Chart 3 | January 2022 – March 2024: Refunds Complaints as a Share of Total Complaints (Airlines)
Passenger demands refunds following flight suspension. This information reveals that refund process has not gone on smoothly. From several months in 2022 over twenty five percent complaints were focused on refund amounts. In both 2023 and 2024 however that figure has dropped to fifteen percent given a lot of call-offs that occurred at this point but issues still persist regardless
Chart 4 | The chart presents airline punctuality rates based on the data from airports of Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai. The number on the chart indicates the % of flight that landed or took off within an acceptable time limit.
These past two years have seen a steep decline in airlines’ punctuality records. Major airlines experienced their lowest level of on-time performance in two years in December 2023 (SpiceJet: 30%, Air India: 47.6%, IndiGo: 60%). Poor on-time performance has still characterized this year, too. Over the past couple of years alone, this problem affected forty-five lakh passengers.
