Opinion The wheels are off
There is no point in trying to put Air India back together again.
The umpteenth attempt at putting Humpty Dumpty back on the wall does not look like succeeding. Its well known that Air India has been in a precarious state for the past couple of years,but the current management seems to be aiding and hastening the downfall. The pilots have again gone on a strike despite knowing the stringent options the management can exercise,like moving for de-recognition of their association,a route it had adopted with other unions in the recent past. So,the ICPA now stands de-recognised,the strike is illegal in the eyes of law and,yet,there is no resolution in sight.
But the issue is not really about pilots and their grievances. All agree that whatever the problems,there is no justification in passing them over to the passenger. That said,all this points to a larger malaise,one where all channels of communication within the organisation have broken down. Systemic attributes like a basic level of trust,fidelity and flexibility among employees and managers,the workforce and executives have just evaporated in the past few months. No one seems to trust anyone in that airline,which has turned into a hotbed for conspiracy theories like,there are powers that want us to fail,so that private competitors can succeed or for that matter,air bilateral rights are being given away at our cost to private carriers least realising that these are sovereign rights,not a companys treasure trove that it can trade to shore up its finances.
These are all signs of a company gone bust and heres where the real problems begin because the government has committed large amounts of public money for its revival. And thats why the Prime Ministers Office is today exasperated but not combative,urging the ministry and the management to resolve the situation through dialogue. The government knows it will be held accountable for the money its spending through this revival package,but the airlines top brass could not care less. As a result,Air India is a rundown airline dealing with issues of a rich company just because government funding has created an artificial sense of security and more damagingly,a lazy,spoilt attitude that the government will never let us fail. So,the future is even dimmer.
Lets just consider the present problem. Pilots of the erstwhile pre-merger Air India get an assured amount of money for 80 hours of flying every month,regardless of whether they clock that many hours. Back-of-the-envelope,this works out to around Rs 8 lakh a month for a flight commander. The old Indian Airlines pilots got paid on an hourly basis,which means income calculated on the number of hours you fly. A true merger of the airline ought to have logically led to the creation of a single system of calculating these emoluments. That was never done,giving rise to parity issues. Despite the merger,both systems continue to prevail. On an average,an erstwhile IA pilot could get close to Rs 4 lakh a month with an average flying cycle of about 60-65 hours. It was not a perfect situation,but everyone went along with the hope that a uniform system would eventually be devised.
Far from it,the worst has happened. To get its finances in order,a short-sighted management went full steam to cut routes and,therefore,reduce costs under the garb of making it a trim airline. Like any patch-up job,the results were also temporary. What happened though was the pie got smaller by the day. DGCA figures for the month of March show the market share of Air India (domestic) was down to 14.9 per cent,way below Jet,Kingfisher and Indigo while catching up steadily is Spicejet at 13.5 per cent. From being market leaders,the airline is down to the fourth position and likely to be relegated to the fifth in the next few months.
What has all this meant for the pilots on the domestic sector? Fewer flights to fly,therefore,fewer hours and hence,a reduced pay package,which is bound to hurt someone in wait for a raise. So these pilots are actually agitating for more work,more flying hours,but there isnt any scope.
The truth,which the pilots must be told,is that their company has shrunk in size,stature and revenue. So,incomes linked with something like flying hours will come down which,obviously,raises the question of what happens to those receiving fixed salaries on an assumed 80-hour cycle.
Essentially,Air India is in a twin spiral. If coping with complex issues resulting from the merger of the two airlines was not enough,it has to now deal with problems of suddenly becoming a smaller airline. The tragedy is that the second problem is a boomerang of a revival strategy aimed at cutting costs through streamlining operations which,in the end,was just a blanket withdrawal of routes. All this was done to be able to window dress performance,justify infusion of more public money and spawn a new fiefdom of managed incompetence. Its time the government realised at the highest levels that the wheels have come off Air India and theres no point just aimlessly pumping in resources to somehow hold Humpty Dumpty together.
The issue is not the absence of ideas or strategies as much as that of organisational commitment to carry everybody along. From leadership to the workforce,there is a clear disconnect at every level,rendering any plan unsuccessful. As for the government,it had better watch out because these thousands of crores in aid of a revival package could well sow the seeds of the next scam.
pranab.samanta@expressindia.com
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