Turbulent times

“Air India is sick and I hope it doesn’t reach ICU” was the honest announcement made by the Minister of Civil aviation Mr. Ajit Singh while combating the fresh threats from the Air India Pilots. His candid admission of the problem faced by the National Carrier did not take any body by surprise. In fact it is common knowledge that the once smiling maharaja is not only sick but on the verge of death. En mass the pilots have actually reported ‘sick’ to halt the operations of the airlines is double irony. This comes a t a time when the entire nation was waiting for the sick AI to take off on a bailout package of Rs.30, 000 Crore and hoped that perhaps this time round the package may cure the airlines of its cancer. But it seems that this cancer is not curable and the Government & its inefficient ‘Babus’ are largely responsible for this malady. The overstaffed jumbo organization is in a complete mess after the merger of the Air India and Indian Airlines. Before its merger in 2007, both were doing just fine and earning profits. The cause of the strike is also rooted in the concern of the senior Pilots of the Air India against the training being given to the erstwhile Indian Airlines Pilots to fly the prestigious 787 ‘Dreamliners’ due to be inducted in the fleet. It is clear and admitted by the Honorable minister himself that all did not go well with the merger. All mergers & acquisition take place after much research and a clear plan to accommodate the smaller company & its executive in the mainstream. The government has miserably failed in providing professional leadership and management strategies to run the airline after the said merger. The sarkari  Babus simply did not do the essential pre-merger exercise and ended up with surplus staff and heart burn among the Indian Airlines Pilots.  The airline has a massive Rs 40,000 crore debt enough to fund and run at least 80 airlines. It has around 475 employees per aircraft as against 70 in Indigo & others. The humongous staff, enormous debts, incompetent management and lack of political will to run it on commercially viable routes, have all contributes greatly in grounding the AI. No wonder the Minister himself admitted that the Government should not be in the business of running an airline which is essentially a service industry.

The Government should learn its lessons from the British Airways & Lufthansa which were privatized some 20 yrs back and are now a much recognizable brand in the aviations sector. It should invite experts like Gopinath, the founder of air Deccan, who have proved their mettle in this sector and start the process of disinvestment to revive the airlines through a credible & strategic partner. On the other hand the highly-paid pilots should sit across the government and solve their problems through dialogues rather than holding the airlines and its passengers to ransom. The government should immediately implement the recommendations of the Justice Dharmadhikari committee report which has suggested ways & means to tackle the problems of the merger of the two giants, and integrate the problems of the human resource, training etc in AI. The problems do not exist only in AI, the Indian aviation sector itself is facing turbulent times, with Kingfisher also running up huge losses and struggling to turn around their operations. The Government must create a vibrant aviation sector and devise long-term plan and vision for all players. It should formulate policies and incentives to increase the percentage of the domestic passengers to competitive international levels and lift this ailing sector from its comatose state. If a surgery is required then it should be performed immediately to save the  smiling Maharaja from death.