Poor services drag Indian aviation's growing wings as 61% flyers complain of cancellations: Report

Between January 2022 and September 2024, the domestic aviation industry registered 25,500 cancellations that impacted over 10.76 lakh passenger, government data showed.

Poor services, delays and cancellation continue to plague India’s aviation industry even as airlines make heavy investments to expand its operations and fleet capacity amid a growing demand for air travel, a report said on April 2.

A staggering 61 percent of Indian air travelers said they faced at least one cancellation or were forced to reschedule a flight due to “internal reasons” without a single case compensation for the passengers in the last 12 months, a survey conducted by LocalCircles said. However, the cases witnessed a drop from 74 percent in the previous 12-month period.

Shockingly, IndiGo paid just Rs 18,000 as compensation in the last three years despite the cancellations affecting over 5.47 lakh customers. IndiGo’s on-time performance (OTP) also saw a sharp fall in 2024, with rival Akasa Air grabbing the top spot with an average OTP of 74 percent.

The survey, moreover, found that flyers had to shell out anywhere between 50-100 percent in penalties for self-cancellation. However, no compensation was paid when the airlines themselves cancelled the flights, with 22 percent struggling even to get a refund for their airfare.

Between January 2022 and September 2024, the domestic aviation industry registered 25,500 cancellations that impacted over 10.76 lakh passenger, government data showed.

The top reason for the cancellation of flight was weather at 41.56 percent, with technical, commercial and operational causes accounting for the rest, the data said.

The highest number of flight cancellations was seen in the first 9 months of 2024, with India’s top airline, IndiGo, accounting for 60.53 percent, or 15,464 of the total instances. Other airlines with high cancellation numbers are Alliance Air (at 2,707), Air India (at 1,934), and SpiceJet (at 1,731), civil aviation minister Murlidhar Mohol had stated in a written reply in Rajya Sabha.