By IANS,
New Delhi : Attempting to improve its image after the official auditor criticized it for the quality of its service, national carrier Air India Sunday said it had achieved an on-time performance of nearly 93 percent for the month of September.
The data is computed on basis of flights from from Sep 1 to Sep 23.
“Air India achieved 93 percent on time operations (nationally) of its flights. And in the Delhi region, we achieved 96 percent on-time performance for the fifth time in September,” a senior Air India official in the operations arm told IANS.
According to the official, the news about the on-time performance was broken to the employees by the airline’s regional director, north.
“In a message to all employees, the regional director appreciated the efforts put in for the milestone and also urged employees to be more customer-friendly,” the official said.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had, in a report released earlier this month, criticized the carrier on its service quality.
“Air India is no more a favoured airline for passengers. The services and criteria that benchmark a favoured and popular airline are absent in Air India,” the report said.
The official said Air India was able to achieve the best ever performance at its biggest operations base in Delhi with an average of 96 percent on-time performance.
The Delhi region for the flag carrier is biggest in terms of seat allocations with up to 100 departures and 14,000 seats available per day.
The airline had also extended a short-term promotion scheme till January. Under the scheme passengers can buy either a silver pass priced at Rs.35,000 for unlimited travel on economy class within 15 days or a platinum pass priced at Rs.70,000 for travelling on executive class on domestic routes.
“Passengers are happy with our effort to provide them with the most competitive prices while ensuring the best customer service,” the official said.