Air India’s CEO acknowledged on Wednesday that airspace closures posed a challenge to the airline’s timely performance.
The airline has faced delayed jet deliveries and airspace closures due to geopolitical tensions, which have weighed on its performance as it strives to recover from the plane crash in June that killed 260 people.
Moreover, in April, Pakistan had announced a series of measures, including the closure of its airspace to all India-owned or Indian-operated airlines with immediate effect.
India and Pakistan fought their fiercest military conflict in decades in May, sparked by an attack on Hindu tourists in Indian-occupied Kashmir that killed 26 people. New Delhi, without evidence, alleged that Islamabad backed the attack. Pakistan denied any involvement.
Since then, the two nuclear-armed neighbours have closed their airspaces to each other’s airlines.
“Airspace constraints are a challenge to on-time performance,” Air India’s CEO Campbell Wilson said at an Aviation India event in India’s capital city, speaking publicly for the first time since the crash of the Boeing Dreamliner in India’s Ahmedabad city.
“We’re always looking at how we can keep improving,” CEO Wilson stated. “This year will be quite challenging from a business perspective … We’re also working with the investigators,” he added.
Furthermore, the Tata Group-owned carrier has been facing intense scrutiny ever since the crash, from warning notices for running planes without checking emergency equipment to not changing engine parts in time and forging records, along with other lapses related to crew fatigue management.
India’s air accidents investigating agency published an interim report earlier this year saying the plane’s fuel engine switches had almost simultaneously flipped from run to cutoff just after takeoff.
