I received sad news that both my sister and my sister-in-law passed away within one day of each other.  Living thousands of miles away and not being able to be with them in India was a major blow.  Some of my former Air-India colleagues may remember that my sister’s son, Pavan Lumba worked in the airline for a number of years in the 1960s and 70s.

My second assignment in Kuwait was to make a study of the local (Kuwaiti) market and recommend how to improve the airline’s market share.  I worked quite closely with the local Sales Manager but our progress was rather slow because of the attitude of the middle level Kuwaiti managers who had great difficulty in accepting the fact that a “Hindi” was intellectually superior to them.

They had been brought up with the notion that all Hindis were ABCDs - Ayahs, Bearers, Cooks and Drivers.  They had great difficulty in accepting instructions from such an individual.  A white skinned person was OK, but a Hindi, definitely not.  Unfortunately, I encountered this attitude throughout my service in KU.

My next assignment was to study all offline stations and make recommendations to either make them more effective or close them.  This study took me all over the airline’s system, stretching from North America on the one hand and the Far East on the other.

While I was involved in various assignments, let me write about an amusing anecdote.

There was an Auto Show in Kuwait and I thought it may be an ideal opportunity for me to see some new models so that perhaps, I could see which make and model of car, I would get when we arrived in the USA.

Manju and I went to this Show and parked alongside a number of cars in the “so-called” parking lot which, basically, was an expanse of packed sand.  We saw a number of cars at the Show and shortlisted a few which would eventually be whittled down depending upon the budget sanctioned for the purchase of the car.

It was getting quite dark when we left the Show and I saw an opening to the main road home and proceeded to take a short cut, little realizing that I was now leaving the packed sand and moving towards soft sand which soon bogged the car down.  My attempts to move the car by shifting gears and using the reverse had no effect and instead, the car sank lower and lower.

We got out and trekked towards the main road where a kindly soul stopped his mini truck and gave us a lift home.  On reaching home, I realized that I had left my ID card in the glove compartment and so went to KK Menon’s apartment in a nearby building where his son offered to drive me back to the Auto Show and I retrieved my ID Card.

Next morning, my old friend the GM of Air-India’s GSA arranged a drop-off at my office and I related the incident to Fahed Al-Wazzan, the CD.  Fahed had a good laugh and called Maintenance who sent a Jeep and the driver took me back to where the car stood in its lone glory.  On the way, the driver took great pleasure in speaking about amateur drivers.

We parked behind my car and the driver attached a rope so that he could tow me out.  Lo and behold, his Jeep also got stuck and the more he tried, the deeper his wheels went into the sand.  Luckily for both of us , an earth moving equipment was close by and the driver of this equipment came to our rescue.  When he asked what happened, I got the last laugh as the KU driver was by now, red in the face.

When I got back to the office, Fahed told me that the trick in such cases was not to try and drive, but instead to let out some air from all the tires.  This would flatten them and make it easier to move the car.  Interesting lesson learned.

The Chairman then asked me to conduct in in-depth study of the Indian market which was a major contributor to the airline’s traffic and revenue.  He particularly wanted me to examine the constant complaints of the Indian agents who said that their payments were held up for lengthy periods of time.  In this study, I crossed paths once again with my old “friend”, the young clerk who wanted to be Air-India’s GSA in North India and whose unsuccessful venture and subsequent doggedness I have described in my Blog “indiancivilaviation.blogspot.com”.

Let’s now identify this person because he will feature quite prominently in some of my future posts.  I am certain that many of my readers will have recognized who this person is, but for the benefit of all, he is the founder and Chairman of Jet Airways and I will refer to him in the future as “the Chairman” and I will expand on this name in one of my later posts.  He was by the beginning of the 1980s and until he founded Jet, a very successful GSA for many airlines in India.  

When I decided to leave India, he was very unhappy but delighted when he learnt that I would be joining KU.  He needed a helping hand in his dealings with this airline and looked forward to my assignment with this airline.  However, when he learnt that my long term intention was to move to the USA, he made umpteen arguments and inducements for me to stay on in Kuwait, which I rejected.

As was well known in the market, all of the Arab airlines were discounting heavily in the Indian market.  What I discovered during my study was the following:

1. All foreign airlines were allowed by the Reserve Bank of India to fully transfer the amounts that they had earned on sales in India after deducting their expenses. 
2. As such, Indian agents dealing with KU showed the full IATA fare on the tickets issued by them and in their Sales Reports.  The discounts that they offered to the passengers were subsided by them and the GSA was then sent an invoice for this amount.
3. This particular GSA had an arrangement with KU whereby he collected what was known as the “Administrative Fee” or AF, in Swiss Francs.  The amount was placed in a special account established in a Swiss Bank.
4. He then negotiated a “Hawala” rate and received the equivalent in Indian Rupees in India for him to reimburse the Indian agents.
5. During these transactions, he benefited enormously since the Hawala rate gave him a far better exchange rate than the official Franc/Rupee exchange rate.  This allowed him  to keep a fair margin which he kept in his Swiss Bank account and transferred the balance, which was the AF of 30% into INR.
6. Reshipped around for the best exchange rate and this process took some time which was the reason why he could not reimburse the agent on time.  This put tremendous pressure on the agent’s finances and hence, the complaints of late payment.
7. When I confronted him, he pleaded guilty but in mitigation, submitted that he need the “buffer” to take care of his under the table expenses.  On prodding further, he confidentially told me that this buffer was required to grease the right palms both in India and also the airline employees of the airlines for whom he was the GSA.
8. I subsequently learnt from various sources that the latter part was indeed correct as these employees would collect their “hafta” from the Philippine Airlines GSA”s office whenever they were in London.  This GSA was another feather in Jet’s Chairman’s cap.

Nonetheless, we came to an understanding whereby he promised to make timely payments to the Indian agents.  He agreed to keep a float of Indian Rupees in India for this purpose.

My last major assignment during my stay in Kuwait was the reorganization of the Commercial Department of KU and resulting from one of my recommendations, they established regional offices in the U.K./Europe, the Far East and the Middle East.