AI should use the Shiv Sena MP 'moment' to bring wind beneath its wings
Photo for representational purpose
What a great opportunity for the Air India to bring a turnaround! The airline, which had posted losses of Rs 3,837 crore in 2015-16, should see the latest act by the Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad as a blessing in disguise and aim for a big overhaul of the way it operates.
For the uninitiated, the MP manhandled an AI staff over a squabble, beating the 60-year-old man repeatedly with his sandals on a flight!
For years, the erstwhile maharaja of the sky has been at the beck and call of the "maharajas" in politics, disrupting services to accommodate its perpetually late political masters, carrying around its own top executives and families on vacations for free, its militant trade unions holding the management to ransom at the slightest sign of reform.
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| The erstwhile maharaja of the sky has been at the beck and call of the "maharajas" in politics, disrupting services to accommodate its perpetually late political masters. |
That has to end, if we are not to see the death of an airline that was founded by the legendary JRD Tata in 1932 (then Tata Airlines, which subsequently became Air India in 1946).
Over the years, this behemoth has bled Rs 30,000 crore of the public’s money, in the form of government subsidies. While the erring MP should be punished as per law (all airlines are planning to blacklist him from flying too), the AI should now decide and put an end to the culture of freebies and servility, disengage itself from this VIP culture that has been bleeding it for years. That can be a good start.
Get your flights on time. That’s the most important service you can do to your customer. That’s what has catapulted Indigo to the most-trusted name in airlines. That’s why people choose to fly Jet and Spicejet, which is on a turnaround curve. And to get your flights on time, you have to dump the latecomer, irrespective of his position.
Then move on to other big restructuring exercises, including pruning staff, maximising your revenues per seat through operational efficiencies, and some good marketing. Only that will give it a chance.
Else, Air India too will be a relic in the not too distant future. Grab this opportunity!