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    A blowback in India's booming aviation industry: Surge in consumer complaints

    Synopsis

    For the second time this year, air travel volume breached the one crore monthly mark, with 1.04 crore passengers flying domestic airlines in October.

    ET Bureau
    Richa Malhotra is still aghast at the “insensitivity” of the airline she flew with. The tech consultant in Delhi booked a flight to Patna on October 29 to attend her best friend’s wedding. Much to her horror, the evening flight of one of the low-cost airlines got cancelled. Malhotra, 31, was not kept in the loop. “There was no prior information.

    They just did it arbitrarily,” she fumes, alleging that no alternative arrangement was made by the airline. “I missed my friend’s wedding. Flyers are being taken for a ride,” she rues.

    Malhotra is not the only one nursing a gripe. Sonali Khatta, an HR recruiter in Delhi, alleges that she was denied boarding because the flight was overbooked. “They just want to fill the plane. What airlines forget is that we are not cattle. Show some heart.”

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    A sea of disgruntled flyers, unfortunately, threatens to expose the ugly underbelly of Indian aviation. Ironically, a boom in the sector may have much to do with consumer distress. For the second time this year, air travel volume breached the one crore monthly mark, with 1.04 crore passengers flying domestic airlines in October. Passengers carried by domestic airlines during the first 10 months of this year totalled 9.54 crore as against 8.14 crore during the previous year’s corresponding period, a jump of 17.30% according to data released by regulator DGCA (director general of civil aviation) on Friday.

    Image article boday


    A recent report by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) tipped India to overtake the UK to become the third largest air passenger market by 2025. China, according to the report released last month, and the US will occupy the top two slots, respectively. By 2036, India will have 478 million airline passengers, more than those of Japan and Germany combined, it added.

    Image article boday


    Image article boday

    Image article boday


    Unfortunately, a boom in flying is having an unanticipated blowback: a surge in consumer complaints. From 606 lodged against the erring airlines in September this year, the number shot up to 656 in October, according to DGCA data. While 30.5% of the flyers blamed customer service, 16% pointed fingers at flight problems like sudden cancellation and delay, 22% had issues with their baggage and 7.5% didn’t like staff behaviour.

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    The numbers, reckon experts, don’t present the correct picture. Most of the flyers don’t lodge a written complaint. “Airlines are providing a customer-centric service. There should be no room for error,” says Pallavi Jain, cofounder of Instalocate, an artificial intelligence-powered travel assistant app that enables disgruntled flyers to get compensation from airlines in case of flight delay, cancellation or denied boarding.

    The aviation rules, says Jain, are biased in favour of the airlines. Take, for instance, flight cancellation. Whenever a flyer cancels a flight, a heavy fee is levied on her but, when an airlines does it, it just gets away by saying “sorry for the inconvenience”. Similarly, there are double standards for late reporting. When the cabin crew or pilot is late, passengers have to suffer in silence. However, a flyer is denied boarding if late. Staff behaviour may come in last in the list of complaints, but they are perhaps the most lethal.
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    “Even a single incident of unruly staff can taint the entire industry,” says Jain, alluding to a series of incidents this month. On November 5, badminton player PV Sindhu alleged that an IndiGo staffer misbehaved with her while boarding a Hyderabad-Mumbai flight. Later this month, a video went viral on social media showed three members of IndiGo’s ground staff manhandling a passenger after an altercation. IndiGo is the third worst airline when it comes to consumer complaints for several months, according to DGCA data. (IndiGo declined to comment.) The top offenders last month were Air India and Jet Airways, followed by IndiGo and GoAir.

    Airline staff, for their part, maintain that while there have been some sporadic cases of unruly behaviour, flyers too have not been doing their bit to maintain decorum. Vaishali Ahuja, a lead cabin attendant at one of the top low-cost airlines, points out several instances of rowdy flyer behaviour, especially by first-time flyers. It’s common, she lets on, for flyers to argue over fastening of seat belts, use of mobile phones during takeoff and landing, and opening of overhead cabins in haste.

    Image article boday

    Image article boday


    Image article boday

    “Some of them behave as if they have bought the plane and we are their personal servants,” she bristles. What’s most annoying for Ahuja is when flyers misbehave because they are not served food first. “Corporate clients who have pre-booked meals are the first ones to get food. One should not complain about it,” she adds (See Nature of Consumer Complaints) On-ground employees have their side of the story.

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    “Standing first in the queue doesn’t mean that one can board first,” says Sweety Saxena, an employee with a full-service airline. Business-class passengers, she points out, get the first opportunity to board. “People lack flying etiquette and are on a short fuse,” she adds. Some resort to abusive language and don’t even realise that they are talking to a woman employee. A few of the so-called privileged flyers even resort to violence, point out staffers.
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    Image article boday

    Choking Airways
    What is also aggravating the matter for the airlines is saturating infrastructure. Most of the top airports are choked and teeming with passengers. Even with a relatively conservative growth rate of 10% per annum, Delhi and Chennai will reach optimum capacity within four-six years; Mumbai is close to saturation (see Airport Capacity Saturation). Infrastructure challenges, contends Sanjiv Kapoor, chief strategy and commercial officer of Vistara, are completely out of the airlines’ control and at times enrage passengers. Weather conditions, fog, or ATC-related delays, diversions or cancellations are beyond the control of airlines.
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    Some travellers, adds Kapoor, get upset if they are asked to switch off their phones, or not use the lavatory when the seat belt sign is on. However, Kapoor concedes that handling irate flyers is crucial. “At the end of the day, we are in the customer service business and have to place our customers before everything else.”

    Rigorous training of employees in soft skills is the need of the hour. Vistara, he claims, has a training curriculum that covers soft skills and passenger handling in all kinds of situations. “We have regular service excellence training to reinforce the learnings,” he says, adding that the staff is always exhorted to make on-the-spot decisions rather than simply go by the book.
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    Sharat Dhall, chief operating officer (B2C) of travel portal Yatra, reckons that while there are disruptions in the overall experience that are outside an airline’s control, the trick is to ensure a happy ending even when things go wrong. One way to do that: offer freebies in the form of a complimentary pass to first-class lounge or vouchers to airport restaurants, or an upgrade to the next higher class on the next flight if there is no seat on the booked flight.

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    “Act swiftly to mitigate the damage by either offering a freebie or a swift apology,” suggests Dhall. Owning up to an error and attempting to make it right go a long way in winning back the hearts of consumers. “It makes flyers feel heard and valued,” he says, adding that customers do understand that things might go wrong. Well-trained staff can salvage even the worst of flyer-related crises, he asserts.

    Ajay Singh, chairman and managing director of low-cost carrier SpiceJet, believes that training is critical to win the hearts of the consumers. “SpiceJet never compromised on manpower training,” says Singh whose airlines recorded a 79% rise in net profit to Rs 105.28 crore during the July-September quarter over a year ago, making it the 11th consecutive profitable quarter for SpiceJet.

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    “Restoring credibility and trust among flyers did the trick,” says Singh, who bats for stringent punishment for unruly aviation employees on the lines of rules framed for flyers. In September, the Civil Aviation Ministry issued India’s first ever “no fly list” to tame unruly flyers.

    The list defines three levels for disruptive behaviour with different grounding periods. The first is for unruly physical gestures, verbal harassment and unruly inebriation. This offence can lead to a ban of up to three months. The second level is for physically abusive behaviour (pushing, kicking, hitting, inappropriate touching), and carries a flying ban of up to six months. The last level is for life-threatening behaviour, and includes assault and damage to aircraft systems. The ban ranges from two years to lifetime.

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    What is at stake for the aviation industry, points out Jain of Instalocate, is harmony between flyers and employees. There would be erratic cases of flyers or staff misbehaviour, but that should not divert focus from the larger goal: training of employees to handle pressure. “At the end of the day, the ball is in the airlines’ court. They need to be more responsible than flyers.”




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