THE HUMAN FACE OF INDIA’S AVIATION BOOM

A recent incident at Srinagar airport, in which four SpiceJet ground employees were grievously assaulted after asking a passenger to pay for excess cabin baggage; should make every frequent flyer uncomfortable. One staffer sustained spinal fractures; another suffered jaw injuries. The attack, captured on camera, shocked the industry and prompted regulators to act.

If that episode revealed the worst of what ground staff endure, another infamous incident still lingers in public memory. In 2017, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad reportedly hit an Air India employee repeatedly with his footwear after he was denied a business-class seat on an all-economy flight from Pune to Delhi. The brazen assault, carried out by an elected lawmaker, underscored the vulnerability of frontline aviation workers and the impunity often enjoyed by those who abuse them.

I have gathered countless such stories from years of working with both large network carriers and small regional airlines. Most never make it beyond airport walls, quietly buried to avoid bad publicity and to protect the airline’s carefully managed image.

Airlines are packaged and sold around pilots, cabin crew and engineers. But it is the ground staff (including security staff) who keep the machine alive on the tarmac and at the counters. They shoulder passenger anger, handle frantic re-bookings, marshal aircraft, load baggage, coordinate with security and air traffic control, and often unseen, patching operational holes when management’s decisions fail.

CONDITIONS, RISKS AND THE ANATOMY OF STRESS

Ground staff work under brutal, swinging conditions. They move from cool, glassy terminal lounges onto heat-radiating tarmacs in Delhi summers, shiver through Srinagar winters, and slog through monsoon deluges in Mumbai or Kochi. Their exposure to physical risks goes well beyond the weather: repeated heavy lifting and awkward postures cause chronic musculoskeletal injuries, ramp and baggage-handler accidents can maim, and years of proximity to jet engines create a real risk of long-term hearing damage. Occupational studies consistently show that airport employees face elevated risks of noise-induced hearing loss and other work-related conditions compared with the general population.

These risks are not hypothetical. In November 2019, a ground handler at Goa’s Dabolim Airport was seriously injured when a catering vehicle collided with a groundhandling vehicle on the tarmac; he was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. In June 2013, a driver operating a batterypowered tug on a slanted ramp at Chennai Airport was struck when the vehicle rolled, leaving him with a leg fracture. Incidents like these and countless others that never make headlines; occur at Indian airports far more often than passengers realize, highlighting the constant physical hazards ground staff face every day.

And finally, when flights are delayed, diverted, canceled or diverted for safety, the young man or woman at the counter becomes the human lightning rod. I have watched ground staff manhandled while trying to pacify passengers in impossible situations like an aircraft diverted for safety reasons, cancellation due to weather, a delay caused by air-traffic congestion.

These are situations beyond anyone’s control, yet it is the person at the counter who must absorb the passengers’ ire. Though the ground staff are trained in classrooms and through experience to remain patient and calm while dealing with irritated passengers, most of the time they defuse the tension without letting it spiral out of hand, but not always.

UNIONS: PROTECTION, POLITICS AND LIMITS

Barring Air India and its group companies, employee unions in Indian aviation are rare. Some private carriers have seen attempts at worker collectives, but recognition and structure vary widely. Jet Airways once had active unions, while airlines such as GoAir, IndiGo, and SpiceJet historically avoided them, relying instead on informal welfare associations. The idea of a national union for airline employees never fully materialized, though recent protests at Air India Express and Vistara show that the spirit of unionization is not dead and could yet gain shape as the industry expands and stress on staff grows.

If nurtured responsibly, unions could give ground staff a collective voice on issues like safety, fair pay, and job security, and act as a check on arbitrary management decisions.

If the government and airlines remain resistant to a unionized culture, they must create a strong, independent employee redressal system, ideally overseen by the Ministry of Labour or a group of retd judges and activists, that guarantees fairness and cannot be compromised by management pressure.

PRIVATE AIRLINES AND THIRD-PARTY HANDLERS

Working conditions vary widely depending on the employer. Private carriers may offer better pay, training, and structured HR policies, but cost pressures often result in freezes, delayed salaries, or abrupt layoffs during downturns. Many airlines now lean heavily on third-party ground handlers; not only to cut costs and simplify operations, but also to dilute any collective employee voice.

Contract staff are harder to unionize, easier to replace, and less able to challenge management decisions, which makes them convenient for airlines but far more vulnerable when crises strike. Outsourcing also creates fractures in accountability: ground-handling employees typically have weaker social protections than airline staff, and sudden regulatory or commercial changes, like the revocation of a security clearance can throw operations into disarray while leaving workers exposed to immediate job losses – without sunwai.

REGIONAL DISPARITIES AND CAREER FRAGILITY

There is a stark regional divide. Ground staff at metro airports may, after redundancy, find alternative work in logistics, retail or other airport services. In smaller cities, tier-II and tier-III towns options are thin. When a regional airline folds or downsizes, staff in small towns often face unemployment with few transferable skills, forced relocations, mortgage stress, and family breakdowns. The human cost can be tragic: financial distress has precipitated severe health crises among staff left unpaid after airline failures.

TECHNOLOGY: RELIEF OR EXTRA BURDEN?

Digital check-ins, mobile boarding passes, AI baggage tracking, remote bag-drops and selfboarding kiosks are reshaping work. Some automation reduces repetitive manual lifting or simple queue management, but it also shifts responsibilities: ground staff now troubleshoot kiosks, reconcile automated baggage mismatches, manage exceptions created by algorithms, and maintain new systems. Technology can be a net positive, but only if training, staffing and safety standards keep pace. Otherwise, it simply changes the form of exploitation.

One critical step is the creation of an Employee Protection Fund, with contributions from airlines, ground-handling companies, and the government, to provide immediate relief if an airline defaults on salaries or suddenly shuts down, much like welfare funds already exist in construction or seafaring. There is a need for stronger occupational health protections, such as mandatory hearing conservation programmes, ergonomic protocols for baggage handling, and regular medical monitoring to catch long-term risks early.

FINALLY, A PLEA FOR DIGNITY

Finally, airlines and governments must invest in public education campaigns to teach passengers patience, dignity, and understanding when interacting with ground staff. More often than not, delays, cancellations, or diversions are beyond the control of the person at the counter. A little empathy can go a long way — it not only eases tension in the moment but also acknowledges the hard work, stress, and risks that these frontline employees navigate every day.

India’s aviation boom has been impressive. But growth that overlooks the people who keep planes flying is brittle growth. Ground staff are not expendable cogs; they are people with families, mortgages and hopes. If Indian aviation wants to be world-class, it must first be humane. Protect the ground warriors, and the sky will follow.

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY THE AUTHOR ARE PERSONAL

Ajay S Jasra, The writer is an Aviation Expert