Jet Airways in tailspin, nosedive at IndiGo. New Delhi must stop India’s aviation sector crashing – or face election turbulence
- In just months, India’s domestic aviation sector has gone from being the world’s fastest growing to a chaos in which over 1 in 7 planes are grounded
- As disgruntled passengers head to the polls, New Delhi must engineer a course correction and quick
The software developer, 27, arrived at the airport in good time to cover any eventualities and things appeared to be going his way. All around him, flights were being delayed, rescheduled or cancelled but at least the departures board suggested his own flight would be spared the chaos.
Until shortly before take-off, that is, when he heard that his flight, like so many others that day, would be delayed for hours.
“The airlines could have announced the delay at least three hours before. Flights were constantly being delayed from the morning. But instead, I was informed about the delay [so late] that I had no choice but to stay inside the aircraft,” Dahbi recalled. By the time he arrived in Ahmedabad, Dahbi had already missed the funeral.
Dahbi is among tens of thousands of Indians to have been hit by the delays, cancellations and rocketing prices that have plagued the country’s aviation sector in recent months. And on Friday, Jet Airways announced it would cancel all international flights from Saturday to Monday.
Until the second half of last year, India was the world’s fastest-growing aviation market, passenger numbers were up and the Ministry of Civil Aviation was confidently predicting it would hit 1.1 billion air travellers by 2040. Growth appeared guaranteed as it seemed inevitable that the aspiring middle class of Asia’s third-largest economy would slowly come around to considering air travel a viable mode of transport rather than a luxury.