IndiGo faces spate of challenges

It is the country's largest airline and has been ruling the Indian skies for long. But as the aviation sector slowly claws back to normalcy after two years of pandemic-induced carnage, IndiGo is facing heat from competition which has been compounded by staff problems, changes in top management and a fleet diversification.
Just as it managed to put behind a public feud among its promoters, IndiGo is now grappling with employees leaving for better offers, slippages on its On-Time Performance (OTP) and a handful of technical snags denting its image, according to analysts.
   IndiGo had a domestic market share of 57.7 per cent in September, more than 1,600 daily flights and 279 planes but of late, the OTP has slipped to 84.1 per cent in September from 90.1 per cent in April this year.
  In February 2020, before the pandemic, the airline had a market share of 48 per cent.
 Just as the Indian skies opened up and air traffic began to rise, IndiGo saw a change in Chief Executive Officer (CEO) with Ronojoy Dutta stepping down ahead of his tenure which was to end in January 2024. Now, Pieter Elbers is at the helm as CEO.
   While there has been no official word on attrition at the budget carrier, people in the know said many employees are quitting, especially with opportunities coming up as the global aviation space recovers after the pandemic.
   With respect to Human Resources (HR) policies, an IndiGo spokesperson said the airline has established a strong culture of managing talent in support of expansion, growth, and succession planning.
"We have commenced rehiring for roles across corporate functions such as Digital, IT, Finance, HR, and Sales along with airport operations, customer service, and security functions. We have also restored the salaries of all our employees to pre-COVID levels," the spokesperson said.
   IndiGo had 26,164 permanent employees, which included 3,791 pilots and 6,398 cabin crew, at the end of March 2022.
  In July, dissatisfaction among certain sections of the airline's employees came to the fore as a large number of staff called in sick, resulting in massive flight delays.
During the pandemic, the airline had slashed salaries of pilots by up to 30 per cent.
An employee said the carrier's revenue model and growth strategies are good, but there needs to be proper implementation of the policies in a more transparent manner.
   Many people are leaving the airline, especially from the support teams, since there are better opportunities with the recovery in the aviation industry, the employee said on the condition of anonymity.
The number of staff at the carrier came down to 23,711 in fiscal 2020-21, which was also the time when the pandemic had significantly hit the aviation sector. In 2019-20, the count was at 27,812.
The airline's turnover rate of permanent employees stood at 15.98 per cent in 2021-22 whereas the same was at 22.9 per cent in 2020-21, a steep rise from 14.30 per cent in the previous fiscal.
The airline's loss in the September quarter widened to ₹ 1,583.34 crore on higher fuel costs and forex losses.
In the last three-four years, IndiGo was having prime slots and there was little competition. Also, the industry as a whole is facing issues with respect to OTP as more aircraft are flying and air traffic has increased. 
OTP is affecting every airline, but it becomes more visible when one player has very large operations, an aviation industry analyst pointed out.
IndiGo carried 59.72 lakh passengers out of the more than 1.03 crore people flown by domestic carriers in September, as per official data.
A second aviation industry analyst said that from being just a point-to-point carrier, IndiGo has become a network carrier, which has its own challenges like waiting for connecting passengers and baggage.
This had to be sometimes done across multiple terminals like in Delhi or Mumbai, further impacting the timelines, which are beyond the carrier's control. This also adversely hits the OTP, the analyst opined.
-B