The Indian aviation industry has taken quite an unexpected turbulent hit these past two weeks after low-cost carrier Go First took as much as its namesake when it suspended all flight operations till May twenty third and filed for bankruptcy. The budget carrier’s sudden exit from the market meant that other Indian carriers had to select up the slack rapidly.
This also meant various last-minute changes to flight schedules, crew scheduling, recent recruitment drives, and plenty of more for the opposite airlines. Flag carrier Air India was amongst the numerous that stepped in, and Chief Executive Officer Campbell Wilson recently briefed his employees about what the approaching months would bring ahead of this latest shift within the industry.
Filling within the gap from Go First
With Go First accounting for nearly 6% of this month’s schedule within the Indian market, it is simple to investigate how the budget carrier’s sudden suspension motion left a disruptive hole, affecting hundreds of passengers and airline crew. While Go First’s Hajj flights have already been easily relocated to IndiGo, flyadeal, and Saudia, the airline’s domestic market share is yet to be entirely fulfilled by other Indian carriers.
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Although dividing such a big market share isn’t easy – especially as Go First’s timeline keeps adjusting, Air India is indeed working on it, as Wilson emphasized while briefing his employees:
“The week saw Air India and other group carriers spring into motion to help in response to external events. Firstly, stepping up flights to Imphal to cater to those in search of to temporarily relocate given local unrest. Then, to plan how we’d quickly increase domestic flights to fill the gap left by one other airline’s curtailment of flights to attenuate capability, frequency, and airfare disruptions to the general public.”
There was also the difficulty of Go First’s stranded pilots still searching for brand spanking new employers because the uncertainty with their current downed employer continued. Fortunately for them, quite a few Indian airlines opened up massive recruitment drives to warmly welcome these stranded pilots. Within the case of Air India, it received an amazing response of at the very least 700 applications in a single week.
While the large variety of applications helps with the flag carrier’s ambition to rent at the very least 1,000 recent pilots this yr, going through so many applications will definitely take a while, as Wilson highlighted:
“There have been also other rapid actions taken by our sales team to assist a student group stranded in Port Blair, while our recruitment and operations folk quickly catered to an influx of individuals in search of to affix Air India.”
Photo: Boeing
Continued growth for Air India
But besides filling within the urgent gap left by Go First, the airline chief also discussed Air India’s current and future growth. Concerning route network growth, the airline will launch its eighth European destination and fourth recent addition in as many months in June, with four-times-weekly flights to Amsterdam.
A brand new Air India website was also recently launched, and recent features and capabilities were already within the works for future upgrades later this yr, as Wilson said:
“That is the ‘Trishanku’ version which, along with an improved feel and look, sees us migrate off-dated software onto an entire recent tech stack that offers us higher control and the power to innovate faster. And later this yr, our teams will launch the ‘Phoenix’ upgrade that may act as the muse for consistency, transparency, and equity across the organization.”
And after route expansions and technological growth, Wilson also celebrated and acknowledged the exertions done by the airline’s human resource departments with the recent string of revised contracts and salary structures. Their efforts paid off after the pilot unions fully accepted the revised agreement.
Not only did such a move bring an end to the tussle between the Star Alliance member and the pilot unions, but Wilson highlighted that it also bridged many longstanding differences between the airline’s everlasting and fixed-term contract crew, making the airline to be cohesive once more.
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Bottom line
Overall, the transient to his team showed that Wilson was pleased with how hard everyone had been working together and collectively to beat unexpected recent challenges while continuing to make sure the positive growth of Air India. The airline chief described how these rapid response and development actions proved his employees’ tight community spirit and flexibility and everybody’s commitment to helping those in need.