Air India has tightened its internal control mechanisms and increased the frequency of operational audits beyond regulatory requirements in the wake of the AI171 crash that claimed 241 lives, as part of a broader effort to enhance operational resilience and organizational effectiveness, according to details shared by the airline.
The airline said it has adopted an enhanced risk-based audit framework that prioritizes high-risk operations and emerging risks and identifies areas of concern.
“While DGCA CAR (Civil Aviation Requirements) mandates a specific audit periodicity – once a year for Delhi and once every two years for other terminals – Air India has adopted a stricter cadence based on risk assessment. Accordingly, Delhi operations are now audited twice a year, and all other terminals annually. This reflects a conscious move to go beyond regulatory requirements, and exercise an additional layer of diligence and caution,” Air India said in a statement.
“The structured risk-based audit planning framework has been significantly enhanced, post AI-171, ensuring audit resources are systematically prioritized towards high-risk operations, emerging risks, and identifying areas of safety concern. This in addition to airline regulatory compliance requirements, this enhancement has led to the development of a more proactive approach to risk identification, deepening compliance with Air India’s Safety Management System (SMS), and enabling more effective deployment of audit resources in areas of greatest impact,” the airline said on Thursday.
The enhanced audit program covers a wide range of operational areas, including flight operations, engineering practices, ground handling, cargo acceptance and handling, documentation processes, and the passenger journey from check-in to arrival.
Regarding the B787 fleet, the company said that completion of initial programs rose from approximately 75% to 87% over the past year, while the number of reliability programs increased from 36 to 45. The overall level of completion also increased from 48% to 65% during the same period.
Besides operational measures, Air India also said it has expanded mental health support for employees affected by the incident through a comprehensive health initiative. “More than 900 cabin crew members have been reached through the programme, while existing support systems such as employee assistance programmes, peer support networks and in-house psychologists have also been strengthened,” the airline said.
She said the initiatives aim to improve fleet reliability, operational consistency and human performance.
