Alliance Air

Is Alliance Air safe?

Alliance Air has not had a fatal accident since 2000, and no aircraft has been written offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary since then. That is the main reason we score it 68. The weaker part is how its crews land. Since 2018, India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has investigated four serious landing incidents on its ATR 72s, and in 2025 the regulator recorded more audit findings against Alliance Air than against any other Indian airline.

Alliance Air is the government's regional airline. It began in 1996 under Indian Airlines, flew for years as Air India Regional, and stayed in state hands through AI Asset Holding Ltd when Air India was sold to the Tata group in 2022. It flies small cities under the UDAN regional scheme, often on routes no other airline serves.

Four landings that went wrong

All four events ended without injuries, but each one had the same pattern: an approach that was not stable, and no go-around.

• Shirdi, 21 May 2018. An ATR 72-600 landed with a strong tailwind, bounced twice and overran into the runway end safety area. The AAIB said the crew had probably picked that runway to save time.
• Diu, 26 January 2019. The same aircraft, VT-AIX, bounced twice and scraped its tail on the runway. Investigators cited an unstable approach, a wrong bounce recovery and no go-around call from the pilot monitoring.
• Jabalpur, 12 March 2022. An ATR 72-600 from Delhi touched down more than halfway along the runway, bounced and was left with about 400 metres to stop. It veered left off the end and halted on unpaved ground. The pilots' licences were suspended for a year.
• Bhubaneswar, 8 October 2024. In heavy rain and wind shear, an ATR 72 sank below the glide path, hit an ILS pole and approach lights, and touched down about 30 metres before the runway. The belly, the left landing gear bay and a flap were damaged. The AAIB classed it as a serious incident, although its report describes substantial structural damage.

What the investigators said about the airline

The Jabalpur and Bhubaneswar reports point at Alliance Air, not only at the pilots. Airlines record every flight and are supposed to flag long flares, hard landings and unstable approaches, then retrain the crews involved. At Jabalpur, the AAIB found that the airline's software had flagged six long flares by the captain in the days before, and no action had followed; until February 2022 the software could not capture long flares at all. Two and a half years later, at Bhubaneswar, the report again found that the crew's earlier exceedances had produced only email reminders, not corrective training. It recommended more simulator training in bad weather for pilots with recent exceedances.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) reached a similar view from the other side. Its audits in the year to July 2025 found 57 lapses at Alliance Air, the highest number of any Indian airline and more than at Air India (51), which is several times its size. Across all airlines, 244 of the 263 findings were Level 2, the less severe category, and the published figures do not split Alliance Air's by level. The volume still stands out.

There have also been technical events. In February 2022, an ATR 72 lost an engine cowling on take-off from Mumbai and flew on to Bhuj, an incident the DGCA investigated. In August 2026, an ATR 42-600 burst both left main tyres on landing at Bilaspur, and in September 2026 an ATR 72 from Prayagraj made an emergency landing at Delhi after an engine problem and a low oil pressure warning. Nobody was hurt in any of these.

Money, engines and a shrinking schedule

Alliance Air loses money and relies on the government for cash. In August 2024 it had 21 aircraft, 18 ATR 72-600s, two ATR 42-600s and one Dornier 228, but six of the ATR 72s were grounded with engine problems (ch-aviation). In August 2025, BusinessLine reported that most of the fleet was on the ground. Pilots went on strike over pay in 2022 and 2023.

The aircraft themselves are a sound type. The ATR 72-600s in the AAIB reports were built in 2015 to 2017, and the ATR 42-600s were added for short Himalayan runways. A grounded fleet is not unsafe in itself, but it means fewer spare aircraft, tighter rosters and more cancellations.

Alliance Air is not an IATA member, so we cannot confirm that it has passed an IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit, unlike IndiGo and Air India. India has FAA Category 1FAA IASAThe US FAA's check of whether a country's aviation regulator meets ICAO standards. Category 1 means it does; Category 2 means it does not.More in the glossary.

Before you fly Alliance Air

• Book a flexible fare. Cancellations are common when aircraft are short. Check the flight status the day before, especially on routes with one flight a day.
• Expect weather holds in the monsoon. On routes into Bhubaneswar, Jabalpur or the hills, a diversion or a return is the safe outcome. Take it as that, not as a failure.
• Keep your seat belt on until the aircraft stops. All four serious incidents happened during landing, and in two of them the aircraft left the paved runway.

How we scored it

The accident record (84) carries the score: 26 years without a fatal accident or a write-offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary, though on a small regional operation. Serious incidents (42) pull it down hardest, because the same landing errors repeated and the airline's own monitoring did not catch them. The fleet (60) is a modern type held back by groundings. Compare Star Air and Fly91, the two private regional airlines.