The Descent of Air India (2 page)

The
Descent of Air India
is the story of how an airline was brought down to satisfy the selfish needs of a few;it explains how, despite the best efforts of some, a larger—at times invisible but always extremely destructive—force was at work to plot its downfall. It is an account of the dramatic set of events that have led to the airline’s current struggle for survival.

CHAPTER ONE

take off

THE BRIGHT RED sign across the Air India office in Kolkata, close to the intersection of Chowringhee Road and Theatre Road, was impossible to miss. It loomed large over the busy Chowringhee Road. I was drawn to it every time I passed the office, which was quite often, given that I lived barely two hundred metres away on Lord Sinha Road. Such was the impression it made on me that even now, over two decades since I have been down that road and long after the office has been vacated, there is little that I do not remember about the place, the sign and the times.

Air India was a brand to reckon with in the 1980s. Its iconic stature was unmatched. It was one of the few Indian organisations at that time with a global footprint. Moreover, with some of the best names in the industry, such as J. R. D. Tata and Bobby Kooka, having been associated with it in the past, it wore an aura of glamour and excitement. I was not immune to the appeal of working with such an airline and was therefore tempted to apply for the position of chief public relations manager when it was advertised. In comparison to Coal India, the low-profile monolith where I was working, Air India represented a huge leap into the world of big business. It would be the perfect jump for me, and I was keen to take the chance. I applied, was selected and joined the airline in August 1989.

I had been with Coal India for more than a decade, which was quite a record as before that, I had changed jobs quite often—Coal India was my third employer in a span of three years. Between 1974 and 1977, I had moved from Crompton Greaves to Goodyear India and then to Coal India, besides having worked with
The Hindustan Times
while I was still in college. I had also written extensively for major newspapers and magazines prior to and during the period.

In fact, even at Coal India, I was itching to move at first. Within a year of joining the organisation, I had applied for a job with a multinational company in Mumbai. During the interview, the company’s expatriate director asked me why I changed jobs so often. ‘More money, better prospects and pay,’ I replied with the reckless confidence of youth. The director, after leafing through my résumé and the attached set of articles that I had written about the wrongdoings and unfair practices of the government and the corporate world, did not seem convinced. He questioned me some more, and told me that he thought I was probably looking for an ideal organisation, which likely did not exist. And that was why I was changing jobs so often.

It was my turn to disagree now, but he had me thinking. After the interview, as I waited for a bus to take me home, his comments kept resonating in my mind. About two hours later, at a bus stop in Worli, Mumbai, after letting one bus and then another go by, I walked back to his office and withdrew my candidature. I saw merit in his observations and decided that I would stay with Coal India. As I saw it, I would have to either change my attitude, principles and philosophy and become a part of the prevalent system or stick to my beliefs and survive as best as I could in my current organisation. I opted for the latter and for the next 10 years stuck to my resolve.

The Air India advertisement changed my mind. It presented a chance for me to work in the aviation sector and move to Mumbai, a city that had charmed me while I was working for Crompton Greaves. It would also mean putting an end to my travels into the coal heartlands. In the 12 years that I had spent with the company, I had made numerous trips to the coal districts in Bengal, Jharkhand (then a part of Bihar), Chhattisgarh (then a part of Madhya Pradesh), Vidarbha in Maharashtra and Odisha. Air India would take me to far more exotic locations and besides, the job promised a larger canvas, global exposure and a better social life. And the clincher was that I would no longer have to undertake rail journeys, which I abhorred. I had been involved in a major train accident in August 1981 and, ever since, had become a nervous and reluctant train traveller.

I had even come to dread the sound of the rail coaches clanging down the tracks. Working with Air India would put an end to all of this, and I decided it was time to head out of Kolkata to the city of a million dreams.

I was called to Mumbai for an interview, and a month later, I landed up at the Air India building located at Nariman Point, close to the sea front. The managing director’s room, where I was to be interviewed, was on the top floor of the building. As I waited to be called in, the breathtaking view of the sea and the broad streets of Marine Drive swept me off my feet. This made me even more determined to move cities and step into an organisation that not only held out immense promise, but also served up an office with a magnificent view.

To the present generation, it may seem odd that an Air India job inspired such awe. The truth is that in the late 1980s, Air India represented the future of India and was regarded as one of the best companies in the country. It had everything one expected from a renowned company—a legendary founder, operations that served the people and the nation and an expansive reach. It offered excitement and stability. By the time I joined, some of the glory had begun to fade, but the company that J. R. D. Tata had set up was still a coveted workplace. Little wonder then that when I joined the airline in August 1989 and relocated to Mumbai, I was literally walking on air.

TAKING CHARGE

In 1989, Rajan Jetley, allegedly a political appointee and known to wield formidable clout, was the managing director and Ratan Tata was the chairman of Air India. Mr Jetley was engaged in a massive corporate identity change exercise for the airline. He believed that it was time for Air India to wipe off some of the dust and grime that had begun to blur its image. Landor Associates, a San Francisco–headquartered brand consulting firm, had been appointed to create a new identity for the airline. The mandate was to change the logo, aircraft ambience, design for the aircraft exterior, offices and sales outlets, besides everything serving as a customer interface.

Among the many changes that Landor proposed was changing the airline’s ‘Centaur’ logo that had been devised in the late 1940s and the aircraft’s trademark exterior with the
jharokha
windows that helped Air India aircraft stand out at busy international airports. Landor argued that the Indian public no longer identified with the ‘Centaur’ logo and wanted it to be replaced with something that was both more contemporary and more Indian. The ‘Centaur’, it was felt, had to be consigned to the history books. It was a significant moment in the airline’s history as Air India and the ‘Centaur’ logo went back together a long way. After the formation of Air India International in March 1948, four Lockheed Constellation aircraft were ordered to commence international operations. The management began casting about for a symbol that would denote speed and have universal appeal. Sagittarius, represented as the archer, is the ninth sign of the Zodiac. The Greeks represented this constellation as a centaur—half man and half horse, caught in the act of shooting an arrow. As it symbolised movement and speed, the centaur, a stylised version of Sagittarius, was considered to be the most appropriate representation of Air India and was chosen as the official logo. The Landor team changed this to create a logo that had the sun resting on a wide vermilion sash. This was not the first time that the airline had embarked on a redesigning exercise, though. In the past, the original ‘Centaur’ logo and the aircraft’s exterior design had been tweaked on quite a few occasions, but under Mr Jetley and the Landor Associates, the entire exercise of redefining Air India’s corporate identity was being conducted on a grand scale with pomp and fanfare. As for the liveried
jharokha
windows that gave the airline its unique identity, Landor’s officials said that it needed to change to help the young Indian connect with Air India.

The new look unveiled in October 1989 was an unmitigated disaster. Public reaction was swift and brutal. The airline was flooded with letters and phone calls that clamoured for a rollback to the old logo and aircraft livery. Within a year, Rajan Jetley, the prime architect of the change, quit Air India, after which it took the determined will of the then civil aviation minister Madhavrao Scindia to reverse the entire process. The image change was one of the most prestigious projects that the airline had undertaken. Although Landor was one of the world’s best agencies and had worked very successfully with international airlines such as British Airways, Singapore Airlines and Japan Airlines in the past, it had failed to do the same with Air India.

I spoke to several people within the organisation and soon it was clear, even to a newcomer like me, that the problem lay with the way the identity changes were planned and executed. The managing director and the Landor team took all the decisions. Public opinion was not sought and the management team was not consulted. Even the board of directors appeared to have been in the dark about the changes being carried out. Air India was being run as a one-man show, which has been a recurring problem with the airline and, as we shall see in later chapters, was the root of most of its troubles. The managing director interacted with the Landor Associates team and approved or rejected the design changes they proposed without consulting his team. And even if he did take some of his colleagues into confidence, no one had dared publicly oppose him. Yet, everybody felt that the image makeover was ill-conceived. It was merely a cosmetic change while the real problem lay elsewhere.

I was surprised that the board of directors had let such a massive overhaul go through without debate and discussion. Over the years, I have seen several such big-ticket changes and decisions being taken without any consideration for the views of the senior management and for the airline’s welfare and future growth. Decisions were centralised and dissent was ignored and actively discouraged. If one objected to or even questioned a change that was being proposed, he or she would be transferred, denied due promotions or not assigned a foreign posting. As a result, employees never spoke up. They were afraid that they would be victimised or their careers would be finished if they were seen to openly disagree with the chairman and the managing director. The fear and insecurity over their promotions and postings also prevented Air India’s senior employees from uniting to support a colleague or protesting a change. They didn’t trust each other. No two senior executives would present a case together or sign a common petition unless the issue concerned them directly.

There were two reasons for the collective indifference or fear that prevented employees from speaking out. First, there was little by way of employment opportunity in the aviation industry during those years. So, for most, Air India was the only option. Moreover, it was a job from which no one was ever sacked. As a public sector undertaking, Air India offered lifetime employment, which made employees beholden to the organisation. Second, seniority within the airline depended on the length of tenure and not merit or professional expertise. As a result, most senior team members had reached their positions not on the basis of the work they did but by virtue of the number of years they had spent in the airline. It was not that the airline had no instances of the seniority condition being bypassed for a promotion, but that was only in special cases, when the managing director decided to bestow it as a favour. And that vitiated the environment even further. It bred a culture of silence and sycophancy, which rewarded subservience and timidity. The airline also did not have a culture of training its management personnel for higher responsibilities or honing their managerial skills. As a result, the senior management was not suitably skilled to meet the rapidly changing requirements of the airline business, which has proved to be its undoing over the years. Even Coal India, a public sector company, made investments in training its officials despite its low profile. But Air India never did.

The problem was compounded by the fact that the mid-level and senior positions in the airline were closed to external candidates. All the senior positions, including those of departmental heads, were filled through internal promotions or, at times, by the giving of additional charge to other heads of departments. I was possibly the first individual to be inducted in the decade of the eighties through advertisement of the vacancy, as the public relations department had no officer even three grades below the designated level to fill up the post when the head of the Department of Public Relations retired. The people within the airline did not see any need to upgrade their skills and improve their performance since they knew that promotion would come to them in due course. They were keen, however, to guard against a delay in their promotions or a denial of a lucrative international posting, which could occur if the chairman or the managing director felt that they had spoken out of turn. The emphasis of the human resources policies practiced by the airline was on protecting the seniority of individuals, howsoever inept they may be. And as the years went by, the people who led the various departments found themselves caught in the same trap of promotions and postings and allowed the airline’s long-term prospects to recede into the background.

Air India also did not have instances of employees quitting the company mid-way through their careers, ostensibly because of the glamour then attached to Air India—the perquisite of foreign trips and a lifetime of free tickets to destinations outside the country. Their professional lives were thus wholly confined to the airline and they felt that serving the chairmen and the ministers, and not the organisation, best served their interests.