Senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram has attacked Air India for huge delays in his Delhi to Chennai flight. On X (formerly Twitter), he said, “I regret that there has been practically no improvement since the management changed from government to private sector.”
Chidambaram said this after being frustrated with boarding Air India 540. Noting they boarded after a 10-minute lag past scheduled departure, he pointed out that while standing on the aero bridge for over 15 minutes, most could not board the aircraft because they were stopped from doing so at the aircraft door before the aircraft took off a manner that was characterized as confusion whether to leave or stay.
“Passengers are just boarding 10 minutes AFTER departure time. No one knows when the flight will depart. I am a frequent traveler by Air India and can point out numerous areas for improvement that competent management could address. It seems Air India lacks capable managers at various levels,”
he said.
After nearly seven decades of being a government-owned airline, Air India was returned to the Tata Group in January 2022. The airline had been struggling for years and was on its way to becoming a mere taxpayer-funded airline. Now, Chidambaram has raised questions about the operational issues that the airline’s current management has not been able to sort out.
