Fear of flying Alliance Air

Although IA paid up over Rs 220 crore to the Government in the year1999-2000 in the form of dues, the government has refused to fork out the Rs325 crore that’s needed as seed money for buying new aircraft.

The government’s refusal flies in the face of reason and raises severalquestions. Chaman Lal Gupta, Minister of State for Civil Aviation claimsthat his ministry has little option other than approaching the market toraise money for new aircraft. Without new aircraft, he says, the situationwon’t improve. Adds a senior IA official, “Why do they keep using thepretext of disinvestment? Why not simply shut down the company rather thansystematically starve it of funds?”

Officials say even senior ministers in the Government baulk at travelling byAlliance Air. After the Patna crash in which 57 people died, severalministers have been known to re-schedule their visits to make sure theycoincide with IA flights. These days, the Alliance schedule is normallytreated as interchangeable with the IA schedule. Passengers who thought theywere travelling IA and landed up on Alliance flights have actuallycomplained to IA.

One Alliance Air aircraft Airbus 300 (VT-EVD) has been grounded on more than30 occasions, mostly for a single recurring technical snag: non-retraction,where the landing gear doesn’t open up in time for the plane to land. Thesame aircraft was recently involved in a 65-minute midnight drama onSeptember 25 when it was forced to return to Chennai after losing height.

Former chairperson and managing director of IA, Anil Baijal, in a pre-publicinvestment board meeting convened to buy 50 seaters for the north-eastbefore the Patna tragedy, had prophetically warned that: “I hold theGovernment responsible if there is a crash.” The Government ignored him andeven now, the Finance Ministry has refused to provide seed money to buy newaircraft. This after Civil Aviation Minister Sharad Yadav went to town afterthe Patna crash, saying new aircraft would be in place within threemonths.

Airline officials plead helplessness, and say the situation cannot improveuntil there’s an increase in fleet size. Yadav’s response to thegovernment’s let’s-wait-till-disinvestment argument is that it’s likefattening the cow before selling it. Says a senior official: “Yadav isright for once. The government’s gameplan to starve us seems to be aconspiracy to benefit private airlines.”

Conspiracy theories apart, it looks like the aviation ministry would ratherbuy unviable aircraft from the north-east than go in for urgently neededfleet expansion. Alliance Air officials say they need at least 38 aircraft,and demand that a committee be set up on the lines of those for the purchaseof defence equipment. In any case, even after an order has been placed foraircraft, it takes two years before they are actually delivered.

This crunch has interfered with the Alliance schedule, with only eightaircraft actually in flight. The IA has actually seen a decline of almost2,500 passengers a day travelling on the airline network.