Majority of Indian airline passengers unhappy at service

Bloomberg

India’s flying public is becoming increasingly frustrated with the nation’s airlines, according to a survey undertaken for Bloomberg, saying that customer service and the behaviour of airline staff has deteriorated sharply in the wake of Covid-19.
Some 79% of the 15,000 airline passengers surveyed by LocalCircles said they believe carriers in India are compromising on passenger comfort and cutting corners as a result of the pandemic, souring the reopening of what was prior to Covid the world’s fastest-growing aviation market.
Topping respondents’ list of airlines whose service was deemed most unsatisfactory was SpiceJet Ltd, followed by the country’s biggest airline with a 55% market share, IndiGo. Complaints across all airlines included flight delays, shoddy in-flight service, bad boarding procedures and tatty aircraft interiors.
SpiceJet said it is prioritising automation, technology and sustainability to improve customers’ experience.
IndiGo said it is also focusing on digitisation to give customers a contactless travel experience, noting that using technology at check-in to boarding and beyond has helped it reduce wait times at airports.
The nation has a vast domestic market and lured by still-cheap tickets, customers have surged back to airports in their tens of millions, stretching an aviation workforce depleted and weakened by one of the world’s worst Covid outbreaks.
Widespread staff shortages and disgruntled labor forces aren’t helping. IndiGo, which dipped back into the red in its latest quarter, laid off 10% of its staff in 2020 and asked all employees to take some leave without pay last year.
SpiceJet deferred salaries and, when passenger traffic plunged to near zero during India’s second Covid wave, paid some employees based on their work hours.