Three days ago, global business wire Bloomberg issued a list of world's 10 worst airlines, compiled from flight arrival data of 122 airlines across the world collected by US-based flight data agency Flightstats.
The list indicated India's national carrier Air India as the third worst airline with an on time flight arrival record of only 38.71 per cent.
The news has caused discomfort to Air India, that is looking to make a turn around on bail out money from banks.
The furore had raised eyebrows also in the PMO, and the Air India machinery was set on crisis management over the OTP data.
"We totally disagree with the Flightstats report about AI. Initially it seems that the report is fabricated so AI management will investigate the report till the end," said Air India spokesperson Dhanajay Kumar in a statement on January 10.
The same day, in a letter to the Editor of Flightstats, Air India's general manager, G.P.Rao said: "Air India has a consistent record for the last two years of having clocked an OTP of over 78 per cent in its domestic and international network."
"The data published in your report is based on unconfirmed information and is directed at misleading the customers and audience at large,” he said. The Bloomberg story suggested that the worst airlines should be avoided over better OTP airlines, as they lead to increase in travel time by 30-50 per cent.
Air India is presently surviving on a Rs 30,231 crore financial bailout package allowed to it by the previous UPA government and aims to turn profitable by 2022.
The national carrier had a consolidated debt of Rs 51,367.07 crore at the end of the 2014-15 fiscal. It posted successive losses of Rs 5,490.16 crore, Rs 6,279.6 crore and Rs 5,859.91 crore in 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15 respectively.
In the first three quarters of 2016-17, the airline’s operating loss was Rs 161 crore and it had reduced its daily loss from Rs 4 crore every day to Rs 58 lakh. It had reported an operating profit of Rs 105 crore in the last financial year, Rao said.
In response to Air India's letter, Flightstats said it is an aviation data company and it reports flight status and performance data from trusted sources including airlines, airports, GDS systems, civil aviation authorities and positional data sources.
"We stand by our data, collection systems and reporting based on these data sources and our validation methodologies. That said we would be happy to work with Air India with regards to that data that we have sourced to compare with your own data," said the letter by Flightstats James hetzel, VP, Businesss development.
"While we do highlight exceptional performers, we do not, and have not, highlighted low performance or maintain a list of worst performing airlines. Bloomberg requested and was provided a list of 122 international carriers with their accompanying arrival on-time percentage for the year of 2016. Our data, which was a measure of 97.7 per cent of your arriving flights, indicated that 61.29 per cent of Al's flight arrived within the A14 threshold, it said.
The letter clarified that the foreign business wire had used its 'journalistic licence' to invert the result to to highlight the percentage of delayed flights to 38.71 per cent, and indicated that the number was a predictor to future delays.
"This is not how we would portray airline OTP," Flightstats told Air India, seeking to work with them more closely in the future.
