Air India will act against vendors defaulting on services: Ravij Bansal

Air India will not hesitate to take action against vendors who default on their services, the airline's chief Rajiv Bansal said as he works on improving the overall efficiency of the airline.

Taking a serious note of the recent incident where a rodent was spotted on a Delhi-San Francisco flight, Bansal has ordered penalty to be imposed on the caterer concerned after seriously looking into the matter.

"We will take action against anybody who defaults on our SLAs (Service Level Agreements). We will not hesitate to take action if there is a violation," Bansal told PTI in an interview.

Last week, a rodent was spotted on the flight that was set for take-off for San Francisco, following which the service was delayed by more than nine hours. The aircraft was fumigated before the take-off.

About the incident, Bansal said he looked at the matter very seriously with the employees.

"I have told them to do an analysis of where are the possibilities where such a rodent could have come into the aircraft. It could be from the door, belly, flight catering... We did immediate check of catering vans and we found some short-comings. I have ordered a penalty to be imposed on the caterer," he said.

Earlier also, there have been instances of flights getting delayed due to rodent menace and other issues.

Bansal, a senior IAS officer, took charge as the Chairman and Managing Director of Air India on August 24.

"We will plan to work on profitability with a missionary zeal, improve our on-time performance and ensure customer satisfaction," he had said soon after taking over the reins of the airline.