Post Air India crash, travellers checking aircraft model before booking tickets: Survey

Bengaluru: Indian air travellers, especially those who have existing flight bookings for international travel in the coming months or those who are in the process of making them are concerned about which aircraft the airlines are going to fly.

This follows the June 12 air crash involving Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner operated by Air India at Ahmedabad, which led to the death of 270 people including 241 on board. 

About 41 per cent of Indian air travellers are looking at aircraft type before undertaking air travel. Another 56 per cent of the air travellers are checking which type of aircraft the airlines are going to use before booking or undertaking a flight, a survey by LocalCircles, a community social media platform, revealed.

The survey received over 40,000 responses from air travellers located in 294 districts in India post-Air India flight crash. About 61 per cent respondents were men while 39 per cent respondents were women. Among the respondents, 47 per cent were from Tier-1, 32 per cent from Tier-2 and 21 per cent respondents were from Tier-3/4/5 and rural districts.

Thousands of air travellers have been expressing their concerns on LocalCircles and other social media platforms about the safety of this aircraft type and whether it is safe to travel. More than half of all the respondents have also favoured the grounding of Boeing 787-8 aircraft till all issues are investigated and sorted.

Air India has cancelled 66 flights to be operated with Boeing 787 between June 12 and June 17. Multiple flights have been cancelled or delayed citing technical issues have also been reported.

The British Airways flight BA 35 (London to Chennai) departed Heathrow on June 15, and returned to London after take-off (1:15 pm BST) due to suspected wing-flap malfunction. It dumped fuel and landed safely around 1:50 pm, with 214 passengers onboard. In another case, Air India Flight AI 315 (Hong Kong to New Delhi) climbed to 22,000 ft on June 16, and diverted back to Hong Kong due to a mid-air technical issue. Reports allege that pilots are not willing to take any chance at the first sign of any malfunction in the Boeing 787-8 aircraft.