Never on time, yet no penalty

Mumbai: The US department of transportation on Monday fined Delta Air Lines $115,000 for failing to provide information on the ontime arrival performance of its flights when asked by consumers. It is the third such sanction this year, following fines levied last month against Hawaiian Airlines ($50,000) and JetBlue Airways ($30,000), for concealing information on delays.
Unfortunately, the Indian passenger has no such recourse as no information of airline ontime performance is ever released. If data was available, the 300-odd passengers who waited for an Air India flight for 24 hours at Kozhikode airport last weekend may never have chosen to fly the airline.
In the United States, airlines are required to file updated data every month about their flight delays, on every route, airline bumping — the aviation term that describes the process of offloading passengers with valid tickets and other parameters like consumer complaints related to service.
No such recourse is available to the Indian passenger, as the Indian regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, does not make public these parameters.
Only data on airline marketshares is made public, that too with a time lag of about six months. But, even without the official data, flag carrier Air India has, over the years, acquired the dubious reputation of being among the poorest airlines on this count. Air India insiders say “the airline is losing control on its operations specially in the past one year”. Flights are being cancelled or rescheduled often and ontime performance is down to a very poor 33% in the past six months, said an airline official.
22/11/07 Cuckoo Paul/Economic Times

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