A frequent flier from Kolkata is in a quandary. He is supposed to fly to Delhi in a couple of days, but is unsure.

“I am trying to book IndiGo, because I don’t want to fly Air India,” he says.

He is not the only one. The June 12 crash of Air India Flight 171 in Ahmedabad has deprived many regular travellers of sound sleep. The Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed minutes after takeoff for London, claiming 274 lives including five medics.

While AI 171 has become the tragic face of an aviation crisis – and what many feel is symbolic of Air India’s troubles despite the Tatas’ takeover – Indian skies have indeed recently been roiled by a series of alarming developments — mid-air technical failures, emergency landings, bomb threats, helicopters going down, and a slew of last-minute flight cancellations citing “operational reasons”.

Add to that the chronic issues of grounded aircraft, pilot fatigue, engine malfunctions, and overstretched airport infrastructure and you have an industry on the edge.

India’s aviation sector, the face of a rising middle class and economic confidence, is now battling a storm of public distrust, regulatory pressure and existential questions.

Here’s a look at a few civil aviation-related delays and snags just in the last few days that have added to hassles for flyers and would-be flyers.

Air India cancelled six flights

Air India on Tuesday cancelled six international flights, including London-Amritsar and Delhi-Dubai, due to varied reasons and enhanced checks of its aircraft fleet.

The other Air India flights cancelled during the day are Bengaluru-London, Delhi-Vienna, Delhi-Paris and Mumbai-San Francisco, according to the airline.

Earlier in the day, Air India cancelled its Ahmedabad-London Gatwick flight on account of non-availability of aircraft.

The airline said this is part of DGCA checks of all Air India flights across India, it said.

Ahmedabad-to-London flight cancelled

After four days of the AI 171 crash, an Air India's flight to London scheduled to depart from Ahmedabad on Tuesday afternoon was cancelled due to "operational issues", an airport official said.

Air India's official website confirmed that the AI-159 flight from Ahmedabad to the Gatwick airport at London stands cancelled.

Air India San Francisco-Mumbai flight terminated

Air India had to terminate its San Francisco-Mumbai flight at its scheduled stopover at Kolkata on Tuesday morning after one of its engines developed a technical snag.

Termination of the flight, a Boeing 777-200 LR, led to chaotic scenes at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport as its 211 passengers scrambled to convince officials for letting them reach the destination at the earliest.

According to PTI, a technical snag was detected during routine post-landing checks and this is where the airline decided to do a comprehensive check.

Muscat-Delhi flight's emergency landing

A bomb threat was on Tuesday received with regard to an Indigo flight which arrived from Muscat and departed for Delhi, prompting it to make an emergency landing at Nagpur airport for undergoing inspection, the Cochin International Airport Ltd (CIAL) said.

It said that the threat was received on its official email ID about the Indigo flight which departed for Delhi with 157 passengers and six crew at 9.31 am.

Another Air India flight

A Delhi-bound Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner from Hong Kong returned to its airport of origin on Monday within an hour of takeoff after the pilot in command suspected a technical issue.

The flight, AI 315, landed safely in Hong Kong and all passengers have disembarked from the plane, the airline said in a statement, adding that the aircraft is undergoing inspection.

The flight departed from Hong Kong at 12.16 pm (local time) and was scheduled to land in Delhi at 12.20 pm IST.

The flight had departed after a delay of almost 3.5 hours as its scheduled departure was at 8.50 am, as per flight tracking website flightradar24.com.

A Lufthansa U-turn for bomb threat

A Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Hyderabad was forced to return to its origin on Sunday following a bomb threat, the airline said.

“Out of an abundance of caution, Lufthansa flight LH752 from Frankfurt to Hyderabad returned to its point of departure after authorities were made aware of a bomb threat posted on social media,” a Lufthansa spokesperson said.

Another bomb threat

An Air India flight from Phuket in Thailand to India's capital New Delhi received an onboard bomb threat on June 13 and made an emergency landing on the island, airport authorities said.

All 156 passengers on flight AI 379 had been escorted from the plane, in line with emergency plans, an Airports of Thailand official said. The aircraft took off from Phuket airport bound for the Indian capital at 9.30 a.m. (0230 GMT) on Friday, but made a wide loop around the Andaman Sea and landed back on the southern Thai island, according to flight tracker Flightradar24.

And another…

A man who was about to board a Mumbai-bound IndiGo flight from the Calcutta airport on Tuesday told an airline personnel that he was carrying a bomb. What followed was the evacuation of 179 passengers, who had already boarded, to carry out a search operation.

Around 1.35pm, Regal Chongtham, 27, who flew to the city from Imphal a few hours earlier, declared to the airline staff member at the ladder of the Indigo 6E 5227 Airbus that he was carrying a bomb. “Mere paas bomb hai (I have a bomb),” an airport official quoted him as saying.

By then, of 186 passengers, 179 had already boarded, airport sources said.

Airport officials swung into action and activated the emergency protocol. The passengers were asked to deboard the plane. The aircraft was then taken to the isolation bay for thorough checking, the airport officials said.

What do the numbers say?

Domestic air travel in 2024 reportedly hit a record high of 16.1 crore passengers, a 6 per cent rise compared to 2023.

The total number of air travellers, including international passengers, soared to 38 crore, underscoring the growing demand for air travel across the country.

IndiGo retained its stronghold in the skies, commanding a 61.9 per cent share of the domestic market. Some projections suggest that from 2026, India’s air passenger growth may surpass that of China.

As for the long-term forecast, Airports Council International expects the CAGR of India’s air passenger traffic to grow at 5.5 per cent, identical to that of Indonesia, a relatively smaller market. The CAGR of all other major aviation markets is expected to be lower than that, with that of China pegged at 3.8 per cent.

Despite mishaps and threats, air travel remains safest

The thought of boarding the next train is normal at a time when reposing faith in flights is tough.

But datasets have a different answer.

According to Statista, India recorded zero accidents per million departures in 2023, a remarkable improvement from 2022, when the figure stood at 0.87.

The last major aviation mishap prior to the recent Air India 171 tragedy occurred in August 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Air India Express Flight 1344, operating under the Vande Bharat repatriation mission, skidded off the tabletop runway at Kozhikode (Calicut) International Airport amid heavy rain.

The aircraft plunged into a valley and split upon impact, killing 21 of the 190 people onboard, including both pilots.

In stark contrast, railway travel continues to witness a significantly higher casualty rate.

In 2024, Indian railways recorded 351 deaths and 970 injuries in 200 consequential train accidents over the previous five years across 17 railway zones.

Data from Statista shows that in 2022 alone, nearly 21,000 railway fatalities occurred, with 72.6 per cent of deaths caused by collisions with individuals on the tracks or passengers falling from moving trains.

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) says approximately 2.6 lakh lives have been lost in train-related incidents over the past decade.