Restoring Air India's health

Abstract

Air India (AI) has sustained huge losses in the last three years and is getting crushed under a ? 40,000 crore debt. Staff indiscipline, mismanagement and ministerial malfeasance have all done in an airline. It was one of the best aviation companies in the world even after nationalization.

Today, however, indiscipline is rife and has manifested itself as poor on-time performance (65.5% against industry average of 85%) and the highest cancellation rate (2.9% against industry average of 1.2%) for domestic flights. Mismanagement was quite apparent when the airline went in for expansion of its fleet even as it did not have money to pay its staff, resorting to Marie Antoinette’s eating the cake option. The staff union’s claim that AI was stripped of profitable routes and convenient timings of its flights to favour private airlines, by ministerial mandate, does look genuine and needs further investigation. Thus, AI’s pathetic performance highlights the axiom that running business is not the business of government. Read more at: https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/JBZpz8ajyTSJ8jF2yHEhaP/Restoring-Air-India8217s-health.html