Independent directors cry foul against AI management

Mumbai: Four independent directors on the board of India's national carrier have conveyed their concerns over the functioning of the airline to a senior official in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in a direct challenge to the leadership of Arvind Jadhav, the company's chairman and managing director.
The directors, which include two industrialists, a former chief of the Indian Air Force and a senior industry lobbyist, met the principal secretary to the prime minister, TKA Nair, on Monday to convey their opposition to recent appointments made by the Air India board and what they described as the failure of the management to deal with problems arising from the merger of Air India, the international carrier, with its domestic arm Indian Airlines. The combined entity is known as Air India.
“.. they are not happy about the appointment of Pawan Arora, chief operating officer of Air India Express, the low-cost arm of the national carrier. The director-general of civil aviation has also questioned the Air India management on this. As far as these appointments are concerned, the board of Air India misled the independent directors," said the same person.
The disaffected directors also complained about what they described as the "lackadaisical attitude" of the top management to the slow progress of a turnaround plan for the loss-making airline.
The independent directors are Anand Mahindra , vice-chairman and managing director of Mahindra Group; former Air Force chief Fali H Major; Harsh Neotia, chairman of Kolkata-based Ambuja Realty; and Amit Mitra, secretary general of industry body Ficci.
Apart from Pawan Arora, the Air India board had recently appointed Stefan Sukumar, a person of Indian origin from Germany, as the chief training officer, and Kamaljit Rattan as chief information officer.
These moves, along with the induction of Gustav Bauldauf as chief operating officer of Air India, have faced opposition because of the high salaries being paid to these officials, as in some cases the salaries are higher than that of the CMD’s.
Another issue discussed in the meeting with Mr Nair was the failure of Air India's CMD to take charge and execute the turnaround plan according to deadlines.
There is also growing unease within the civil aviation ministry about the way the turnaround plan has been handled by Mr Jadhav.
02/11/10 Manisha Singhal & Anindya Upadhyay/Economic Times

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Categories: Air India Nov 2010