Mumbai: Pressure is mounting on Air India to improve its financial performance.
India’s government in 2012 approved a turnaround plan for the airline, which aimed to restructure debt and improve the state-owned carrier’s operational efficiency. This included a government injection of 300 billion rupees (Dh16.69bn) to be drip-fed to the airline over eight years. The plan outlined that the airline would be able to achieve profitability in 10 to 15 years.
“The funding required by the carrier is even greater than projected in its turnaround plan,” according to the Capa Centre for Aviation. “For a government with so many other pressing economic and social priorities to address, subsidising an airline when there are so many capable private operators is a tragic waste of taxpayer funds.”
The airline’s debts amount to 360bn rupees and it has more than 20,000 permanent employees – one of the highest numbers of workers per aircraft of any airline in the world.
Air India in the last financial year posted a loss of 55bn rupees, which was an improvement on its loss of more than 75bn rupees in the financial year to the end of March 2012.
22/11/15 Rebecca Bundhun/National
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India’s government in 2012 approved a turnaround plan for the airline, which aimed to restructure debt and improve the state-owned carrier’s operational efficiency. This included a government injection of 300 billion rupees (Dh16.69bn) to be drip-fed to the airline over eight years. The plan outlined that the airline would be able to achieve profitability in 10 to 15 years.
“The funding required by the carrier is even greater than projected in its turnaround plan,” according to the Capa Centre for Aviation. “For a government with so many other pressing economic and social priorities to address, subsidising an airline when there are so many capable private operators is a tragic waste of taxpayer funds.”
The airline’s debts amount to 360bn rupees and it has more than 20,000 permanent employees – one of the highest numbers of workers per aircraft of any airline in the world.
Air India in the last financial year posted a loss of 55bn rupees, which was an improvement on its loss of more than 75bn rupees in the financial year to the end of March 2012.
22/11/15 Rebecca Bundhun/National
