State-owned Air India (AI) is achieving the unthinkable. For the past five days its On-Time Performance (OTP) in Delhi — where the airline handles its maximum departures of over a 100 per day (14,000 seats) — has touched 100%.
The average OTP for flights from Delhi for September has been 96%.
The OTP for Mumbai has been equally good. The airline’s load factors and yields have also seen a dramatic increase. The turnaround in the airline’s performance, plagued with a host of problems, comes within a month of the new chairman and managing director (CMD), Rohit Nandan taking charge.
Nandan’s main emphasis since taking charge has been customer-satisfaction, his colleagues said. “Nandan has been monitoring the OTP personally,” an official said. “He meets senior officials thrice a day — the last at 9 pm — for this purpose.”
“One thing the new CMD needs to do is to remove cobwebs,” said Captain Mohan Ranganathan, member of a government committee on aviation safety. “People responsible for the messing of safety rules should be removed. He has to bring in fresh blood with positive outlook and remove the chamchas.”
{{/usCountry}}“One thing the new CMD needs to do is to remove cobwebs,” said Captain Mohan Ranganathan, member of a government committee on aviation safety. “People responsible for the messing of safety rules should be removed. He has to bring in fresh blood with positive outlook and remove the chamchas.”
{{/usCountry}}His hands-on approach came in for praise from aviation minister, Vayalar Ravi, at an AI review meeting on September 22. “The airline’s OTP across the network was over 80% this month. Passenger revenue went up by 12.3% (from Rs 889 crore to R998 crore), the network Passenger Load Factor (PLF) increased from 67.7% to 70.3%,” another official said.
The operational losses have been steadily coming down from R507 crore in April 2011 to R266 crore in August, showing an improvement in the operational performance.