NEW DELHI: Air India has offered to explore operating 275 additional flights this month as part of the government-mandated 10% capacity cut for IndiGo. The Tata Group airline has asked the aviation ministry, which is expected to complete the route cut over the weekend, for a long-term plan so that it can act accordingly, reports Saurabh Sinha. “There are around 1,900 IndiGo routes of which we are cutting at least 10%. A final decision will be taken by Sunday or Monday. Some of these routes will be given to Air India, AI Express and Akasa. We cannot allow people to suffer during the peak travel season. Also, this is a way to check the dominance of a single airline,” a senior government official said. SpiceJet may also operate some additional flights.Sources said AI has sought clarity from the government on how long the current situation will last. “In the short term, we are looking at operating 275 additional flights this month on routes that bear the brunt (of IndiGo cuts). Whenever possible, we operate our wide-body Boeing 777 aircraft between Delhi and Mumbai. We want to know how long this (IndiGo cuts) will last so that we can act accordingly. The short-term addition comes from the spare capacity we had in our existing system,” sources said. Other airlines reported a significant increase in aircraft occupancy after the IndiGo fiasco.Meanwhile, IndiGo operated over 2,050 flights for the second consecutive day on Saturday “as per the revised scaled down schedule”. An IndiGo statement said, “…We have informed all our airport partners to publish the new flight schedules of the customized network on the terminal screens to avoid confusion. With over 3.2 lakh customers choosing to fly with us every day, we are grateful for the trust they continue to place in us.”“Aviation Minister Samir Kumar Sinha has significantly expanded the scope of Air Sewa, the government’s grievance redressal forum, to ensure quick resolution of issues of affected IndiGo passengers.”Officials investigating the IndiGo fiasco said the airline denied there was a pilot shortage. “The probe is ongoing. What we have observed so far is a mix of several things, such as no buffer in the number of pilots to meet a sudden increased demand; the airline’s fortitude to ‘manage’ the situation created by the new crew duty rules (which have now been put on hold for IndiGo A320 pilots till February 10), and a breakdown in management-pilot relations,” they said.
