 "Air India building")
Air India is set to add over 500 new flight crew members into service in each of the coming months, the airline’s chief executive officer and managing director Campbell Wilson said in a message to employees.
Wilson said that the airline was investing in a “leading-edge software,”expected to be completely operational by early 2024, to enable the flight crew to be quickly reassigned and passengers immediately rebooked if the airline faced a disruption. Business Standard had reported the same in June.
Following the introduction of a ‘new crew pairing model’ last month, the carrier will also introduce ‘Jeppesen-built’ software for rosters in August, leading to better management of flight crew across its fleets.
Queries sent to Air India on Friday remained unanswered till press time.
The airline said that as it activates the software for its flight crew over the rest of the year, they can experience more systematic and scheduled rosters and ‘better integrity of golden offs’, which could help the flight crew boost the airline’s operations.
Golden offs are select few days, excluding leaves, that the operating crew can choose to stay off-duty for special occasions such as anniversaries and birthdays.
“It is a significant investment, but one that we feel is well worth doing to improve equity amongst crew, more stable work-life balance, better accommodation of preferences, as well as better operating robustness and overall efficiency,” Wilson said in a message reviewed by Business Standard.
“With more than 500 crew being released into service in each of the coming months, we will be able to … accelerate training,” Wilson added.
The Tata group-owned airline’s on-time performance (OTP) slipped to 69.4 per cent in June from 82.5 per cent in May this year, according to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) data.
The carrier’s domestic market share improved marginally at 9.7 per cent in June from 9.4 per cent in the previous month, DGCA data showed.
