New Delhi: Ninety-five per cent of the families of the 171 Dreamliner, which crashed just seconds after take-off in Ahmedabad, have received interim compensation, said Air India CEO Campbell Wilson on Monday. Air India Flight 171 en route from Ahmedabad Airport in Gujarat to London Gatwick Airport in the UK crashed 32 seconds after takeoff on June 12. Of the 12 crew members and 229 passengers on board, only one passenger survived. On the ground, 19 people were killed, and 67 others were seriously injured.
“We continue to do all we can to support those who were affected. Ninety-five per cent of families have received their interim compensation,” Wilson told reporters at the company’s Air India Training Academy in Gurugram.
“About 70 of the families have also received the ex gratia payment from the AI 171 memorial trust, with another 50 or so in the process of being dispersed, and we continue to reach out to the families of those affected, both as Air India and as Tata Sons, to offer the assistance and support that they might require.
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“As we’ve said previously, our commitment to those who have had a loss, whether they were on ground or in the air, will continue for as long as it takes,” the CEO said.
Wilson stated that the compensation follows a “fair and well-managed process”. The CEO noted that the “booking rates dropped in the first few months”, post the deadly crash, also “due to extraordinary external events, including crises in the Middle East”, among others. However, it “picked up later” and that “the volumes are back”.
He also spoke about how the company has been focusing on the mental health of the crew, including the pilots, both before and after the crash. “The mental health of all staff, the crew in particular, has obviously been important since privatisation. We have launched a number of initiatives in the past few years, whether it be professional psychologists on staff, whether it is the ability to contact a psychologist on third-party confidentiality, or the buddy programme set up in case somebody talks to a peer rather than a professional,” Wilson said.
“We have testing and assessment at regular points during the induction and progression process. It continues to be something the industry focuses on and continues to try to strengthen,” he added.
Further, the CEO mentioned the number of courses now underway to ensure that the crew can converse and interact with people, regardless of how fussy they might be when it comes to food and beverage.
The company has also set up a state-of-the-art facility in Gurugram — a first of its kind in the country — to train its cabin crew and pilots. The facility provides them with hands-on experience to manage turbulence, fires, and other emergency situations like pilot incapacitation, among others.
“We invest in this early and benchmarking against the best in the world because this is, to most outsiders, people don’t appreciate how important a training facility is to an airline,” Wilson said.
“It’s an inculcation of professional standards and behaviours, but it’s as much about instilling culture and for crew, particularly who operate at 36,000 feet every day, it’s really the only place that they have to mix, mingle, interact, for us to interact with them and so, we thought it was crucial for us to invest in a facility that gave people the sense that we were prepared to invest in them, and we were prepared to invest in what it would take to build a world class airline,” he added.