Let Air India fade away like HMT, IDPL

Air India lost Rs 5,000 crore last year, and is surviving on huge government handouts. Opposition politicians are critical, but reject any cut in its bloated staff. Across the world, airlines are reducing staff in the recession.
But Air India staff, labour aristocrats paid several times the average Indian wage, are unshakable. Instead, civil aviation minister Praful Patel proposes to hive off surplus staff to some new corporations. Problem: the new corporations, with the same faulty staff and culture, may suffer the same fate as Air India.
Patel says, rightly, that airlines across the world have been hammered by the recession. Jet and Kingfisher have big reputations, but are also in the red.
When the recession struck last year, Jet proposed cutting its staff by 1,900, and Kingfisher too. But politicians, trade unions and the media created a ruckus. Jet and Kingfisher were not allowed to slim down like airlines across the world: instead they were allowed to pile up unpaid fuel bills.
The recession is estimated to have cost 1.5 million jobs, the Left says 15 million, in labour-intensive industries like textiles. Our labour laws protect unionised workers from retrenchment, but low-paid casual workers have been laid off. Politicians murmur sympathy for the millions of casual workers laid off, but their outrage is reserved for any sacking of the labour aristocracy, such as the staff of Air India or Jet.
Patel is being criticized for various reasons, some legitimate and others not. Air India has never been viewed by politicians as a commercial venture. Rather, it has been a vehicle for serving VIPs and satisfying political pressures to fly to certain destinations, whether commercial or not.
Plane purchases have been dogged by allegations of kickbacks. Naturally, Air India managers are not focused on efficiency or profitability. This is one reason why the merger of Indian Airlines and Air India has failed.
19/07/09 Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar/Economic Times

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Categories: NACIL Jul 2009