Even as the fierce sandstorm that swept across West Asia threw flight operations across the Gulf out of gear for three days, the period marked a new chapter in the history of the Kochi-based low-cost carrier, Air India Express. The carrier transported about 19,000 passengers between the affected destinations and Kerala.
According to officials, not even a single flight of the airline from the three airports in the State was cancelled over the three days starting April 1, during which, it operated all its 108 operations to the affected airports and 25 other flights to unaffected areas. Barring a few delays, the airline ensured regularity in services on the back of an airport service management plan with an average occupancy of 180 passengers per flight.
“The new plan was executed after one of our aircraft from Kozhikode was grounded in Dammam owing to the sandstorm. Following this, we put in place a two-level information system by combining the call centre and a dedicated four-member team in each of the airports, who liaised with the passengers and updated them about the revised timings,” said a top airline official.
Fleet planning
“At the same time, the airline also kept revising its fleet planning to move planes from one base to another with the help of its Integrated Operations Control Centre (IOCC) at New Delhi for operating the affected services. Wherever the aircraft was lying idle for over six hours, we took it to the concerned airport as a ferry flight and did the affected sortie,” the official added.
For instance, the airline pulled one aircraft from Lucknow airport to operate its Mangalore-Dubai service and another from Amritsar for ferrying passengers in the Dubai-Thiruvananthapuram-Dubai sector.
With the passengers having been kept posted about the revised timings, the airline had to book only 16 hotel rooms for accommodating those who arrived early at the airport.
A well laid out airport management plan was executed with the IOCC in complete rhythm with the operational requirements. “The fact is that if passengers are informed about changed timings well in advance, they will be happy to cooperate,” said Aby George, deputy chief of customer relations, Air India Express.
