I last Posted on March 3, 2019 and at that time, I had concluded that it would be my last Post as my writings had brought me to the end of my tenure with Air Mauritius and I had “fully” retired.

A couple of weeks ago, I happened to meet a very pleasant and personable young lady in New York and she told me that she had read my complete Blog - both parts; one pertaining to my career with AI and the second which spoke of my tenures with KU, PanAm and MK.  She was disappointed to learn that I did not plan to add to my Blog and I must admit that she has managed to convince me to continue Posting as and when I come across any interesting items.  So, here I am back again.

There have recently been a few news items concerning an airline which does not in any way resemble the airline where I started my working life.

One item stated that the Indian Government was still holding on to its plan to sell it and hoped to accomplish this task before the end of the current calendar year.  

I quote here a news item dated June 28, 2019 from Indo-Asian News Service "The plan is to sell the airline within 100 days. The accounts for last fiscal is in the process of being closed so that bidding process could start at the earliest. This time, the government is in no mood to relent on the sale of Air India," an official source told IANS.

It also stated that the projected loss for the financial year ending March 31, 2019 was estimated at Rs. 7,600 crores - I understand that the comparable loss in the previous year was Rs. 5,337 crores.  In the same period, that total debt has increased from Rs. 55,000 crores to Rs. 58,000 crores.  My only comment is - GOOD LUCK, TRYING TO SELL THIS MASSIVE WHITE ELEPHANT.

Another item showed that the airline had about 19 aircraft sitting on ground due to lack of spares.  This included some 787 aircraft - the latest addition to the airline’s fleet and that Management had decided to earmark about $500 million to purchase the spares and get the aircraft back in flying condition by the end of the year.  I am at a complete loss why this decision has been taken considering that the intention is to sell the airline at around the same time.

In a third item, the Civil Aviation Minister has indicated that the airline will start services to Toronto, Nairobi and Bali to coincide with the winter schedule - and they still plan to sell the airline before the end of the year!!!!!

Have we gone crazy?  You are planning to sell the airline before the end of the year and at the same time, incur additional expenditure in setting up new offices and additional crew and ground support for the new flights. What if the new owner does not agree with this expansion of routes.  I must, of course, presume that Market studies have been undertaken to prove the economical viability of these flights, or am I mistaken?

Of course, this time, the announcement for the new flights was made by the Civil Aviation Minister.  This is a significant departure from earlier times when the Prime Minister used to make such announcements - cases in point are the San Francisco flights and the Ahmedabad - London flights.  In both instances, the decisions to inaugurate the flights and their announcements did not come from the Management of the airline, which continues to act only on directives from the Government.

And here, I thought that Air-India was an autonomous Corporation!!!  Obviously, I have misunderstood the definition of “autonomous”.

I will end this Post with one last comment and that is on the news item where the Pilot of this “esteemed” airline asked the Flight Purser to wash and clean his Tiffin Box.  The Purser refused resulting in a clash (words? or physical?) between the two.

Firstly, every airline has a policy that each of the Cockpit crew are served different meals and those too, are provided by its caterer.  The purpose is obvious - we do not want both pilots to suffer from food poisoning.  How come a Pilot is allowed to bring his own home cooked food?

Secondly, if I am not mistaken, the Inflight Service Department now reports to Operations and since the latter have always considered themselves to be the Lords and Masters of the aircraft, they feel they have the right to order the cabin crew as and when they feel superior.  

In my then capacity of Deputy Managing Director (Commercial), the IFS Department reported to me and when Mr. Raghu Raj came on board as the CMD, the then Operations Director (Druba Bose) approached him to transfer this Department to Operations.  Capt. Bose had become quite emboldened at that time, because the Congress Party had taken over the Government and he (Capt. Bose) and a very senior member of the Cabinet happened to belong to the same state - Bengal. 

I opposed this move and was successful in resisting the change.  Subsequent events after my departure resulted in the Bengali connection being very usefully employed.