Calling Mr Patel

Praful Patel,minister for civil aviation,has been an active and energetic asset to this government. Yet Patel has now been in his post long enough that some of his bigger ideas are beginning to be visible as not quite as useful as he claimed they would be. Consider,for example,the merger of Indian Airlines and Air India; it was supposed to be a crucial step on the way to reversing the decline in fortunes of both airlines,which would,post-merger,access the benefits of returns to scale and synergy of operations. That has not happened. Indeed,forget synergy,within the organisation the personnel still seem to behave like they are working for two different companies. Nor is his pricey purchase of 111 new aircraft looking like a masterstroke in retrospect.

But much would be forgiven and forgotten if he did,eventually,manage to turn around what we still call,for our sins,our national carrier. Whether you believe it must exist and stay in state hands,or you believe that the government must shed itself of it at the earliest reasonable opportunity,this much everyone on the outside can agree on: the slow slide to ignominious,bankrupt uselessness must be arrested. But Patels latest revelation,that he believes that Air India can be saved without either shedding manpower or cutting salaries,makes that slide more,not less,steep. Its an established fact that Air India is hideously bloated: its aircraft-employee ratio is 1:226,shocking in comparison to the international benchmark,1:150. Fine,so some of those excess employees could be put to work in non-essential yet remunerative services,rented out to other airlines,as Patel suggests. Yet even that is unlikely to happen: the same union for fear of which Air Indias wage bill has become a fixed cost rather than a variable one also refuses to see employees shift around like that.

Heres the simple truth: a restructuring and revival plan that does not disempower the airlines white-collar union is not going to work. It is less an organisation to protect struggling labour,more a guild to help its wealthy members blackmail a soft employer. Without cuts in the wage bill,the turnaround wont happen.