Recast of AI an uphill task

New Delhi: With a nudge and a push from PM Manmohan Singh, becalmed Air India may have to move faster on a plan to restore financial health and long-term viability after having tread its first tentative steps along the road to reform.
Attempts to get Air India off the ground took a blow when a move to impose salary cuts saw the airline’s executive pilots go on strike in September, forcing the PM’s intervention after the management threatened a lockout. Since then, progress has been irregular.
With the Air India brass expected to keep PMO in the loop, the carrier has been asked to not only release as many leased aircraft as soon as possible and close superfluous overseas establishments but to also set clear milestones in terms of six-monthly targets and evaluations. The civil aviation ministry has been told that a plan for the carrier cannot wait much longer.
What has worried the government is that the assessments offered have lacked specificity. Assertions that it would be difficult to ensure the airline comes out of the red as the aviation sector was “historically loss-making” while projections promised annual revenues of Rs 6,000 crore by 2022 did not seem encouraging. More attention to detail was needed.
Sources agreed restructuring was not going to be an easy exercise given the scale of neglect over the years. A patronage culture combined with lack of accountability and in-house suspicions would need a lot of work to undo and possibly require another push in the right direction from the PM himself. “There is no magic bullet that can settle the airline’s problems,” said an official.
12/11/09 Rajeev Deshpande & Mahendra Kumar Singh/Times of India

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Categories: NACIL Nov 2009