CAPA summit: Airlines fly into crew, aircraft shortages as demand takes off

Air travel is on the upswing and carriers are drawing up strategies to capture a larger pie of passenger traffic but issues like shortage of engines and non-availability of flight attendants are forcing airlines to adjust their growth plans. These issues were raised as the aviation industry gathered at the CAPA India Aviation Summit here on Monday. Even though flights on the India-US routes are in high demand, Air India will be operating six fewer weekly flights between these two countries over the next two-three months due to the non-availability of flight attendants for wide-body planes. “The airline hopes to reinstate them (the cancelled flights) in two-three months as the crew get progressively inducted into flying duties,” Air India CEO & MD Campbell Wilson told reporters. The demand has been so high that Air India charged 28.6% higher fares on the India-US routes in the April-November period of 2022, as compared to 2019, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. Currently, Air India runs 47 flights a week from India to New York, Newark, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington DC. It will cut three weekly flights each to Newark and San Francisco. Due to the shortage of flight attendants, some of Air India's flights to Bangkok and Dubai would be operated on Airbus A320 aircraft, instead of the wide-body Boeing 787.<br/>