Facing stiff competition from Gulf airlines, Air India Express plans to woo passengers by improving its passenger service. Some of the steps contemplated are Malayalam announcements and South Indian delicacies on flight.
The low-cost arm of Air India flies an the Boeing 737 fleet and gets 75 per cent of its business from Kerala. The headquarters is now being shifted to Kochi, and will become operational from next month. Apart from competition, the airline is receiving bad press in Kerala following frequent flight disruptions and business losses. The frequent flight cancellations had given rise to anti-Air India sentiment in the state, prompting the local government to revive its propsoal to start Air Kerala, which would cater to the migrant Keralities.
K C Venugopal, minister of state of aviation and MP from Kerala's Alappuzha district, reviewed the airline's performance at a meeting on Friday. Venugopal is taking keen interest in the airline's functioning and has created an email id — ixmailstominister@nic.in — to receive passenger feedback and complaints. "My office will personally look into the emails and action will be taken in seven days,'' Venugopal announced in Kochi on Friday.
"Apart from the shifting of headquarters to Kochi, it has been decided to recruit new pilots and train captains for Air India Express. We hope to end the pilot shortage in four months,'' he said. The airline has 260 pilots on its rolls, half of them are on deputation from Air India.
Air India Express flights were curtailed due to the directorate general of civil aviation’s norms on flight duty time for crew. The flights were later impacted due to the pilots strike and utilisation of planes for the Hajj.
"We will now focus on schedule integrity and improving our on-time performance (OTP). The latter has already improved from 70 per cent to 80 per cent and aircraft utilisation too has increased from seven to ten hours,'' an airline executive said. The airline has also made changes to the management by appointing A J Dsouza the chief operating officer and Captain Pushpinder Singh the deputy COO. It is also setting up a dedicated customer service centre and appointing senior officials at airports in Kerala to handle passenger grievances, the executive added.