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Air India’s budget airline cancelled dozens of flights after hundreds of cabin crew called in sick, marking the latest staffing crisis to hit the flag carrier bought by conglomerate Tata Sons in 2022.
The airline had to delay or cancel 87 flights on Wednesday after about 300 of the carrier’s roughly 2,600 cabin crew called in sick on Tuesday evening, according to a person familiar with the matter.
“The airline didn’t have time to react,” the person said, adding that management was unable to contact the absent crew after they switched off their mobile phones.
The mass sick leave comes as staff call for better working conditions at Air India. A spokesperson for Air India Express said: “While we are engaging with the crew to understand the reasons behind these occurrences, our teams are actively addressing this issue to minimise any inconvenience caused to our guests.”
The staffing turmoil is the latest blow to Tata’s attempts to consolidate its aviation business and turn around lossmaking Air India after the conglomerate purchased the debt-laden national carrier back from the government.
Since then, Tata has announced plans to merge Vistara, its premium carrier co-owned by Singapore Airlines, with Air India and merge Air India Express with AIX Connect, formerly AirAsia India. It is also purchasing new aircraft to overhaul its old fleet.
Last month, pilots at Vistara called in sick, complaining of fatigue and poor pay. It caused the airline to scale back flights and prompted calls for solidarity from Air India colleagues who said Tata was underpaying and overworking its crew.
Tata’s moves to bring in merit-based performance contracts has made many staff “very unhappy”, said New Delhi-based independent aviation analyst Neelam Mathews.
“They know Air India has this strike mentality,” she said. “It’s in their DNA . . . their mindset is totally different, so I think to a degree Tata is at fault. They should have really looked at this.”
Originally launched by Tata in 1932, Air India was nationalised more than 20 years later. It operated a domestic monopoly for decades until India liberalised its economy in the early 1990s, ushering in fierce competition that cut into Air India’s market share.
Since its return to the Tata stable, Air India’s chief executive Campbell Wilson is leading the effort to overhaul a carrier that had been bleeding $2.4mn a day. Wilson joined Air India after working for 26 years at Singapore Airlines.
Wilson last year told the Financial Times that he hoped to return the airline to the “upper echelons” of global aviation, triple passenger numbers and challenge the Gulf hubs.
In one of the world’s biggest aviation purchases, Air India in 2023 placed an order for 470 planes from Airbus and Boeing to be delivered over the course of several years. The carrier continues to face passenger complaints about ageing aircraft and poor staff service.
The airline’s reputation was also tarnished in late 2022 after its slow handling of a mid-air incident in which a drunken passenger urinated on a 72-year-old woman in business class during a long-haul flight.
Mathews said Tata’s revamp would probably take at least seven years as it worked to consolidate its carriers and resolve labour issues.
“The problems it has inherited are too big,” she said. “Tata thought they would come, sit down and take over like they run their autos business. Aviation is not the auto business . . . this is complicated.”