A Start-up's Hiccups: Air Costa Cancels 22 Flights

Air Costa cancelled a large number of flights from its approved summer schedule. As a start up with a different fleet from every other Indian airline, it faced problems on several fronts. The most pressing was a shortage of suitably qualified pilots for its four aircraft: two Embraer E170s and two Embraer E190s.

The flights affected

The cancelled sectors were those flown by the smaller 67 seat E170s: Vijayawada to Hyderabad, Chennai to Madurai, Chennai to Vijayawada, Vijayawada to Visakhapatnam, Chennai to Coimbatore, Coimbatore to Bangalore, Bangalore to Vijayawada, Bangalore to Hyderabad, and some Bangalore to Chennai and Hyderabad to Chennai flights.

The E170s flew the shorter, thinner southern routes. The E190s flew the longer, denser routes north out of the south, to Ahmedabad and Jaipur, linking them with Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai. The E190s also flew Chennai to Hyderabad and Chennai to Bangalore, and connected Visakhapatnam with Bangalore and Hyderabad.

The E170s accounted for 22 flights a day, 55% of the airline's daily flights.

How the airline responded

Air Costa phoned every affected passenger, explained the situation and offered a full refund. That stood in contrast to late 2011, when the DGCA had pulled up IndiGo, SpiceJet and the then operating Kingfisher Airlines for allegedly cancelling flights without telling passengers. Air Costa kept a low public profile, but this showed a customer focus that no airline can afford to ignore, least of all a new one. Customer focus and punctuality are what many passengers use to choose between airlines with matching fares.

Air Costa had started commercial flights on 14 October 2013, exactly six months earlier. Being new, and being the only operator of the E170 and E190 in India, made this a very hard period.

The reason: pilot shortage

The airline had 22 pilots qualified on the E170/E190. An airline typically needs about 10 pilots per aircraft, or five sets of crew. Twenty two pilots could fly just two aircraft, leaving the other two without crew.

Air Costa chose to keep the E190s flying because their utilisation was much higher, 14.5 hours a day, up to nearly 2.5 hours more than the E170s. The 112 seat all economy E190 also had a lower cost per seat than the E170.

The airline had planned enough pilots for the summer schedule starting 5 April 2014, but the plan fell through. Eight foreign commanders were supposed to have passed the Foreign Aircrew Temporary Authorisation (FATA) exam, set by the DGCA to make sure foreign pilots know Indian regulations, at least 15 days before the full schedule began. They did not clear the exam, which is held every two weeks.

Another 21 pilots were due to join within a week, including the eight FATA licence holders. The other 13 were type rated Indians: seven commanders and six first officers. The airline had also recently hired 40 commercial pilots with no airline experience. Their ground classes were under way at Vijayawada before type rating on the E170/190, most likely in Jordan.

Flights under the approved summer schedule were expected to resume once the 21 pilots were available.

Air Costa also struggled to keep enough qualified pilots on standby and faced a shortage of examiners, who are needed to release Indian commanders and first officers. Because every other Indian airline flew Boeing 737NGs or Airbus A320 family aircraft, there was no pool of experienced Embraer pilots to hire from.

On 30 March one of the E170s was grounded temporarily by a windshield crack. One of the E190s, VT-LBR, filled the gap. The replacement windshield had since arrived and been fitted, and the aircraft was believed to have been cleared to fly again.

2014 fleet expansion plans

The airline planned to add three more E190s, one each in August, October and December 2014. As the fleet and the pool of pilots grew, such operational problems were expected to have less impact.