On June 12, Air India flight number 171 with 230 passengers took off from Ahmedabad airport. Thirty seconds later, the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed into a medical college hostel. The accident could have been prevented, but it exposed the poor condition of the plane and the rot in the entire aviation system. In any democracy, such accidents are a wake-up call, but not in India. Instead, the grieving relatives of the deceased were running from one morgue to another with photos of the bodies and unanswered questions. There was no team to help in times of crisis.
The main reason airlines got away with murder is that there is no regulator to fix their responsibility. The truth is that it was not an accident, it was planned negligence disguised as everyday incompetence. India's aviation sector is not flying high, it is a combination of fear of deregulation, corporate greed and political apathy. As a result, there is blood everywhere-on the runways, in the air and on the hands of those responsible. The two companies that control the aviation sector don't just operate airlines, they run a racket at 35,000 feet, according to people familiar with the matter. These two major airline groups control 88.5 percent of the Indian skies.
Sample the airfares: Delhi-Chandigarh flight costs Rs 8,500 for a 50-minute flight, Chennai-Coimbatore Rs 10,200. Last year, IndiGo carried 118 million passengers and made a profit of Rs 7,258 crore. Air India is modest about its accounting, but its decision to order 470 planes at one go speaks volumes. With GoFirst gone and SpiceJet's market share falling to 4%, there is no competition in Indian aviation - only cartel capitalism. And regulator? Wait, there is no regulator in India. There is DGCA, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. For civil aviation, having DGCA is like having a toothpick instead of a knife. India's so-called aviation regulator is struggling with political pressure, lack of funds and resources, 53 per cent of its posts are vacant and resources have been cut by 91 per cent. The report it released on June 24, waking up from its slumber, reads like something out of a horror novel. It mentions unusable baggage trolleys, wrongly stored life vests, ignoring maintenance protocols, frequent technical lapses and so on. What has the DGCA done to these shortcomings? It issued a press release, patted itself on the back, and then went back to its long slumber.
India is the only country with a large aviation market that does not have a statutory and independent regulator. Britain, Brazil, South Africa and even neighbouring Nepal have independent bodies that do not need ministerial permission to ban flights, impose fines, enforce passenger rights, and even put officials in jail. The US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) has 45,000 employees and an annual budget of $20 billion; in India, it is enough if the DGCA releases accident reports on time.
In other countries, reforms are implemented after plane crashes; the European Union implemented safety management systems after the 2008 Spain Air crash. In 2018-19, the FAA imposed a 20-month flying ban on Boeing jets after the 737 Max crash. Australia's CASA swung into action after the issue of aircraft engines surfaced in 2023. In Japan, the JTSB became active immediately after the Tokyo runway collision this year.
In our nation, the DGCA did not comment for two weeks following the plane crash in Ahmedabad. In Indian aviation, only ticket prices increase rapidly. Indeed, we have a regulatory body for airport standards, as runway tiles seem to be prioritized over passenger safety. Last March, Priya Sharma was unable to attend her father's funeral because an IndiGo flight from Kolkata to Delhi had to make an emergency landing in Jaipur due to adverse weather conditions. On a flight from Bangalore to Hyderabad, when a woman fainted, the crew neglected her, leaving her daughter to inform them tearfully that it was her mother.
Last month, the pilot of an IndiGo flight from Guwahati to Chennai called for a mayday for refueling. A plane from Delhi to Srinagar was damaged by hailstorm. 462 cases of bird hits were found at Ahmedabad airport in a year. After the Ahmedabad accident, India needs to take a big step, it does not need verbal promises for reform. Neither does it need a committee or a 700-page report. This current system has to be abolished and a new system has to be started. The country needs an independent civil aviation regulatory authority which is completely legal, which has authority and which is not politically interfered with. Let this authority appoint foreign experts. It should have a big budget, there should be transparency in the matter of fares. Why are CEOs who tamper with the records of flights and passengers not sent to jail? Passengers should be treated humanely and fares should be reduced in times of crisis. A law should be made to audit every accident, diversion or emergency landing. Insurance money should be paid after a few weeks, not years. Poisonous food and unruly crew members should be banned during flight. Bad weather or technical fault is cited as the reason behind every plane crash but there is never a mention of the systemic rot that is responsible for plane crashes.