What Parliament answers reveal about India’s aviation sector

In the recently concluded Monsoon Session, this was clearly evident in the written questions directed at the civil aviation ministry.

Coming in the aftermath of the Air India crash in Ahmedabad, several questions focused on air safety. Here are five revelations about India’s civil aviation sector:

Regulators: High vacancies

In India, three entities are tasked with air safety: the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA|), which regulates the aviation sector; the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), which sets safety standards; and the Airports Authority of India (AAI), which regulates flight movement and operates air traffic control.

The parliamentary questions focused on their staffing, exposing severe shortages.

Nearly half the sanctioned posts in the DGCA were vacant. Overall, staff vacancy was about 39% in the BCAS and about 37% in the AAI as of June 2025. After these numbers came out, Parliament members dug deeper. They posed questions on staffing by grades and then by technical/non-technical functions in the three entities. These showed that, in the DGCA, only half of the sanctioned ‘Grade A’ posts and half of the sanctioned technical posts were occupied. Further, the 546 vacancies in technical functions made up two-thirds of the DGCA’s 823 vacancies.

Budgets: Tapering numbers

In one of its responses, on 11 August, the government maintained: “The shortfall has not impacted the functioning of the DGCA.” While it said it was filling up these posts on priority, it also said the high vacancy was partly on account of recency—441 DGCA posts were created between 2022 and 2024, including 426 technical posts. In the BCAS, which had 230 vacancies, 84 posts were created during restructuring in 2024. In the AAI, which had 9,477 vacancies, 840 posts of air traffic controllers “had been created recently”.

One challenge for these organizations is budgets. All of them are reliant on the central government, to varying degrees, for funding. In 2024-25, the revised estimates for all three organizations indicate a drop in funding from the Centre. The drop was the highest in the case of the DGCA, from ₹351 crore in 2023-24 to ₹301 crore in 2024-25. In general, all three entities have seen a tightening of support from the central budget.

Airlines: Elusive profits

One of the questions also shed some more light on the pre-tax profit/loss and debt levels in 2024-25 of the five major Indian airlines, which currently fly about 99% of domestic passengers. Some of it was already in the public domain, some of it was not. Like most years, a financial summary of Indian airlines does not paint a pretty picture, except for market leader IndiGo. Four of these five airlines were in the red in 2023-24, and remained so in 2024-25.

Air India, which was privatized and entered the Tata group fold in January 2022, continues its long climb to profitability. It has been adding planes, rationalizing routes and increasing revenues. Amid a period of lower oil prices, its pre-tax loss has reduced from ₹8,922 crore in 2022-23 to ₹5,025 crore in 2023-24 to ₹3,890 crore in 2024-25. But it has a fair distance to travel, and the recent crash has only set it back further.

Timeliness: Leaders and laggards

Several questions revolved around the Air India Boeing 787 that crashed on 12 June—status of this investigation, norms related to working hours of pilots and cabin crew, staffing at regulators, safety of the 787 aircraft and technical glitches, among others. For example, one of the government responses said the number of technical glitches reported by Indian airlines declined from 448 in 2023 to 421 in 2024. In 2025, till 28 July, the count was 183.

In 2025, till 30 June, market leader IndiGo was also the leader on timeliness, registering an on-time performance in 82.4% of its flights. It was followed by Akasa Air (79.5%) and the Air India Group (76.1%). While these airlines were somewhat close to each other, further down, there was a big gap to SpiceJet and Alliance Air. In terms of cancellations, the three leaders in timeliness were also the only ones below the 1% mark.

Airports: Accumulated losses

Air traffic in India has been growing at a steady pace. Amid a diversification of this traffic beyond the leading metros, there are challenges to the extent this can continue in a profitable way. Several parliamentary questions focused on the UDAN-RCS (Uday Desh Ka Aam Nagrik-Regional Connectivity Scheme), where the government incentivizes airlines to fly to underserved destinations. The government has pulled back from this scheme.

One reason for this can be seen in the performance of airports in lower tiers. As per its 2023-24 annual report, the AAI owned and operated 121 airports. One of the questions shows that 81 of these airports, which accounted for about 6% of domestic passenger traffic in 2024-25, made a loss that year. Their accumulated losses over the past decade stand at ₹10,852 crore, with 45% accounted for by the top 10 alone.

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