Top bosses fly high as AI struggles to survive

New Delhi: Air India may find itself nose down and out of the reckoning, but that isn't stopping its top bosses from living life maharaja style and literally taking the airline for a ride. Former Air India CMD Vishwapati Trivedi flew his entire family around the world on a holiday, all business class.
An RTI query by an activist shows that Trivedi availed 161 free passes within 16 months between 2006-08 when he was CMD Air India, even though his entitlement is only two free and two concessional passes and that too in lieu of Leave Travel Concession (LTC).
When asked whether this was the right thing to do, he promptly answered that it was written under the rules.
"It was under the rules and they were not taken, they were authorisations which were not used," he told CNN-IBN.
Trivedi took advantage of a Board decision to expand the definition of family to include spouse, children, parents, brothers, sisters, son-in-law and daughter-in-law. His extended family holidayed at exotic locations like Male, Maldives, Thailand and Singapore - all at the taxpayer's expense. In his defence, Trivedi said, "It's part of the rules. It's like LTC. People travel with family for LTC. They take their family."
When asked how many times did he avail of this, he said, "I have no idea about this. I don't keep account of this, my PA keeps account."
04/07/09 Meetu Jain/CNN-IBN

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Categories: NACIL Jul 2009