Air India Crash: How Airline Responds Will Define Character, Say Experts

Aviation industry experts on NDTV Profit's 'Big Question' discussion panel all agreed on Wednesday that Air India needed to improve its customer-service-response framework and brand communication with customers.

The panel, hosted by Tamanna Inamdar, asked the question about whether Air India's brand could recover from the hit that the tragedy from its aircraft crash in Ahmedabad delivered. The crash claimed the lives of 241 of 242 people on board along with many others on the ground.

The panel consisted of Sanjay Lazar, chief operating officer of Avialaz Consultants; Jitendra Bharagava, former executive director of Air India; Ajay Atwaney of LiveFromALounge.com, Dilip Cherian, an image guru; and Madhav Oza, owner of Blue Star Air Travel Services (India) Pvt.

Oza noted that the airline had seen a 35% decline in its passengers after the crash as well as an increase in customers checking which aircraft they were flying in.

According to a survey from Local Circles, 56% of 40,000 respondents surveyed stated that they were in favour of the government grounding the current fleet of Boeing 787 planes till their safety is evaluated comprehensively.

Cherian said Air India's image had taken a substantial hit from the tragedy and that the airline had a distinct and definable problem with image. "Expectations of an image built upwards by Tatas simply have not happened," Cherian said.

He noted that customers now have many choices for global air travel other than Air India and that the issues customers have reported regarding the airline are things that the Tata Group would find "easy to fix". "Giving passengers the meal and service they expect is the lowest hanging fruit," Cherian said.

He clarified that he had no complaints about the staff, which he found well trained but with the services they had to offer. "The trope prevalent among travellers is that the company is waiting for new aircraft to come in and refuses to do upkeep and maintenance till such time they can do everything," he said.

Bhargava argued that the crash was a "rare incident" and that customers need not have safety concerns regarding Air India or Boeing aircraft. "Flyers are worried, flyers do not need to be worried, Dreamliner is still one of the safest aircraft," Bhargava said.

He said that the Directorate General of Civil Aviation had issued a statement regarding their safety after 27 of the 35 Dreamliners were found to have no issues. "Bigger picture is, Air India is an old brand, give them a week to settle down," he said.

Atwaney agreed saying that one can't determine the safety record of an airline from a one-off perspective. "A whole lot had to go wrong for the crash to happen, this is not the normal course of how the industry works," Atwaney said.

He also said that the airline was not communicating enough with the wider online space or with their customers. "What we need more of is Air India coming out and fighting their case," he said.

Oza noted that the company should use the vast resources in its possession to better address its problems and echoed the sentiment that there was a lack of proper communication from the airline, as this was what he heard from customers of the airline when they were surveyed.

Cherian also stated the customers have more visibility than ever and their feedback can be instrumental in the image building of companies.

"We need companies to recognise it is their voice that customers are listening for, how they respond will define their character going forward," he said.