Air India, previously India's state carrier and now a part of the Tata group, has denied holding a recruitment for airline crew, causing disruption to flight operations of its rival airline Indigo. Nearly 55 % of Indigo's flights were disrupted on July 2, with several reports blaming Air India's recruitment drive causing Indigo staff to report sick in order to take part in the recruitment.
The denial of Air India has been attributed to its senior management and has been reported by ETNow. BOOM's telephonic enquiries to a spokesperson of Air India for an official comment are yet to be responded.
The report said that Air India had not held a recruitment drive on that day. The airline - privatised by the Indian government and now owned by the Tatas - is poised to expand its operations, with some reports stating that it could place an order for nearly 300 jets; among the largest in civil aviation history. These recruitments drives are attributed to this expansion.
The disruption to Indigo's schedule varied from delayed and disrupted flights to some that were cancelled, attracting regulatory attention. The Direoctorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has demanded an explanation from Indigo for this disruption. A daily airline performance dashboard is available on the website of the Ministry of Civil Aviation. For July 2, Indigo's 'on-time performance' fell to just above 45% (or 55% of their flights were running behind schedule).
According to the latest data, that is as of July 3, Indigo's on-time performance was at 71%, which means that nearly 29% of their flights were running behind schedule.
For reference as to Indigo's disproportionate clout over domestic civil aviation, the DGCA's data showed that in May, Indigo catered to 69.90 lakh passengers - nearly 58 of every 100 passengers flying domestically. The same report shows that in May, Indigo's on-time performance was 85.3%, 83.2%, 79.5% and 79% for Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Bangalore airports respectively. It can be read here.
BOOM found several notifications on Air India's Twitter account of recruitment drives being held, on the days below, with none of them coinciding with the dates on which Indigo's flights were disrupted (July 3 and July 4), according to publicly available information.
Indigo is yet to comment on these developments. BOOM found no public disclosure to the stock exchanges as Indigo is publicly traded, or any press release regarding the issue.
This is not the first time that Indigo has landed in trouble. In May, Indigo denied boarding to a specially-abled child in Ranchi. The episode attracted the attention of Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and the DGCA ended up fining the airline ₹5 lakh over the incident.
Indigo, publicly traded as Interglobe Aviation Limited, started the day on the exchanges on a choppy note, falling at much as 3.7% on news of the DGCA seeking explanation from it. However, it recovered in the day, closing at ₹1,645.20, down 0.33% on the Bombay Stock Exchange.