The Descent of Air India (21 page)

As someone who had been with the airline since the late 1980s, I was particularly distressed at the way events had turned out. I felt that Air India witnessed its worst phase of political interference during the Praful Patel–V. Thulasidas tenure during which decisions on acquisition or leasing of aircraft, purchase of merchandise, appointments, giving out free air tickets and upgrades, and on promotions, transfers and postings of employees were taken without any thought for the airline’s future. These decisions could have been overlooked if they had helped the airline. One may have been able to ignore a few errors too, but what is intriguing is the fact that the mistakes were repeated with no consideration for the consequences.

Evidently, Air India has been let down by the people who led it. And this brings me to a phenomenon that I find quite disturbing—the separation of organisational prosperity from one’s own. In its early years, there was never any doubt that the interests of the chairmen and Air India were aligned. The chairman’s decisions were transparent in the way they were taken and executed and backed by feedback from the ground. However, over the years, partly on account of the quality of people in the chair and partly because of the rising political influence, the interests of the chairmen and the airline have at times been at variance. Chief executives have followed a set of priorities different from those of the airline. This shift has unfortunately gone unnoticed because most employees still believe that serving a chairman is the same as to serving the company. They blindly follow his directions even when they are detrimental to the company’s interests. Whether they do so out of naïveté or because they believe that serving the chairman or the minister will bring benefits, such as out-of-turn promotions, good postings and post-retirement jobs, is for the reader to judge. But the truth is that subservient senior executives have not only facilitated patently wrong decisions of the chairman and minister but have also given them legitimacy.

As personal agendas assumed supremacy over corporate objectives, compromises were the norm and the airline’s performance became a casualty. Lack of employee involvement and resistance also strengthened the hand of the politicians. And even those ministers who were not intent on using the airline for personal gain to begin with were made to believe by such opportunists that they could do so.

In the 33 years that I have spent in the public sector, the decline in the behaviour of the politicians and management personnel has been dramatic and rapid. This could perhaps be attributed to the lack of an effective and trustworthy mechanism for grievance redress within the public sector units. The honest and upright lack a voice because they do not find adequate support. And even if the perpetrators of managerial malfeasance are few, those willing to combat them are even fewer, and even they prefer to take on the role of silent spectators.

On some occasions, public outcry over a minister’s action or a chairman’s comment acts as a deterrent to the perpetrators and gives courage to members of the management keen to bring about change. For instance, a lot was written and debated about a flight being diverted at the minister’s daughter’s behest and for changing an aircraft to accommodate the members of his extended family in the business class. The information emerged in response to applications made under the Right to Information Act, and the media took it up quite vigorously. In fact,
The Times of India
(12 June 2009) had reported on the issue and taken it further by bringing in an instance of how the minister had upgraded a member of his house staff to business class when the airline’s directors were denied the same privileges during the same period.

SPREADING LARGESSE AT AIR INDIA’S EXPENSE

Apart from the arbitrary use of the airline’s facilities, the period also saw a sudden rise in expenses. For instance, every year in the past, during Diwali, Air India would gift a box of ‘
toran
’ and ‘
diya
s’ handcrafted by the National Association for the Blind. The idea was to keep costs down and carry forward the airline’s image as a caring corporate citizen. However, when the airline’s finances were under pressure, it was decided that expensive gifts would be sent out, especially to the media, and it was not just selected civil aviation correspondents who were beneficiaries;instead, all those who covered the prevailing minister’s political party gained too. It was a dinner set one year, a set of wrist watches in another year and an iPod Shuffle in yet another year. Even though there are governmental restrictions on the value of gifts that can be given, these gifts were bought disregarding the rule and sent out ‘with compliments of the Minister’. Pliant chairmen did not protest the blatant misuse of the airline’s money.

It was the same story when it came to organising familiarisation trips for the media at the time of a new flight launch or some such affair. The minister’s office would send a list of journalists to be invited, and the senior management was neither given a choice nor allowed to question his choices. I found this appalling, especially since some of these ‘journalists’ never wrote a line after their return. But our views were not taken into consideration, not even when it could have both saved the airline a substantial amount of money and ensured better publicity. In 2007, when India won the T20 cricket championship, Air India was forced to release a full-page advertisement in the newspapers on the specious plea that we should celebrate as almost half the victorious team was on the rolls of Air India. The advertisements cost the airline
3.5 crore—this at a time when the airline was financially bleeding.

Political interference had reared its head in every aspect of the airline’s operations—even in the appointment of a public relations agency or advertising agencies. Traditionally, these were areas completely under the jurisdiction of the Air India management, but during this period, the ministry started dictating the newspapers and magazines where the advertisements should be released.

Since advertising budgets had always been low, the airline has chosen its media basket with caution. But at the behest of a few people in power, Air India, Airports Authority of India and Indian Airlines were forced to release every campaign, irrespective of whether it was relevant to the newspaper’s readers or not, in a publication owned by a powerful media magnate. Even by the most conservative estimate, advertisements worth over
10 crore were issued to the said media house. A note, dated 3 May 2005, by a certain minister’s Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to all companies under the ministry (Indian Airlines, Airports Authority of India and Air India) stated, ‘It has come to the notice of Hon’ble Minister of Civil Aviation that advertisements/notices/promotional campaigns which go to the newspapers, are not given to… which is a leading newspaper for entire Western India. Hon’ble MCA (Minister of Civil Aviation) has expressed his displeasure as it entails limited publicity. I am directed to request that in future whenever any advertisements/notices/promotional campaigns are launched, it must be given to….’

Apart from handing out benefits in the form of contracts and special offers, which financially bled the airline, many ministers have also sought to influence the recruitment process within the airline, which crippled operations and impacted the quality of its offering. Let us consider Air India’s hallmark in-flight service. In its heydays, Air India was known for the exemplary experience that passengers were assured of on-board its flights. It had the best cabin crew in the business and an enviable training programme, which further honed the skills of the crew members. Over the years, the recruitment process was diluted by the political leadership and the management team, which did not recognize the value of the service offering. The recruitment process began to be viewed as an employment generation scheme by the politicians who routinely asked us to accommodate the wishes of their acquaintances, party cadres and other associates. All that mattered to them and to the people who let this happen was that the process could be used to provide employment. The ability of the people thus selected was never taken into account. This has had a devastating impact on the quality of the in-flight staff as well as on the morale of the people who had been recruited for the same job but through the official process. Having been chosen for their merit and aptitude, they felt short-changed when they saw that their colleagues had made it on the strength of their personal contacts and political clout. It was unfortunate that all those who were responsible for driving the airline into this state were indifferent to the consequences of their actions. No employee should allow herself or himself to be guided solely by personal interests because a job carries with it power and responsibility towards the organisation.

Some of those who caved in to the minister’s demands may have believed that it was pointless putting up a fight. For them, I have this example. In late 1994, we were inducting cabin crew. After the selection process had been completed—before the appointment letters were issued—the then civil aviation minister Ghulam Nabi Azad summoned Captain D. S. Mathur, the managing director, to Delhi. Since I was the incumbent departmental head and Chairman of the selection panel, I was asked to accompany him. In the brief meeting that ensued, Mr Azad handed over a list of 20-odd candidates who he wanted to be recruited. On cross-checking with the list of selected candidates, I informed him that five candidates had been chosen on the merit of their credentials. ‘What about others?’ Mr Azad asked. ‘They have failed to qualify,’ I replied. I was asked to leave the two gentlemen alone, and Mr Azad reiterated his demand. Mr Mathur later checked with me to see if something could be done to include the other candidates. But I held my ground, and Mr Azad was informed accordingly. And he behaved as only a minister could: he cancelled the entire selection exercise! In recent years, the ministers have had no problem in getting their people recruited as pilots, engineers and cabin crew. And the results are out there in the open. Air India is failing to perform on every parameter, and part of the blame can definitely be laid at the door of the inept personnel who gatecrashed the selection process without having the requisite competence. And it wasn’t that they used the political route only for gaining entry; they continued to use it for promotions and postings. Interestingly, all the senior management personnel who gained a backdoor entry into the airline have been embroiled in controversies and corruption cases and have brought disrepute to the airline. To cite one example, V. K. Verma, who joined as Controller of Sports but managed to become the commercial director, finally landed up in Tihar Jail for his role in the Commonwealth Games scandals. Luck finally deserted him, unlike in the past, when he had managed to clear all corruption cases levelled against him during his stint in Air India. Likewise, Captain N. Beri joined Air India sometime in 1988 after a lot of political pressure was exerted on the management. When he repeatedly failed to perform satisfactorily in the mandatory DGCA exams and simulator tests even after more than the stipulated number of chances had been given to him, a decision was taken to terminate his services. However his file went missing and he continued in the job. With such instances, service standards and working environment were bound to take a beating.

CLOUDED VISION

The decline of India’s political character definitely impacted the fate of Air India. Of course, what was even more disconcerting was the abject manner in which the airline’s leadership capitulated to their ministers’ commands, sometimes even converting a casual comment made by them into a directive etched in stone. There was no one to defend the airline’s rights, which were under threat from the burgeoning domestic competition as well as the growing reach of foreign airlines in India. The point is best illustrated perhaps by the way the government liberalised the country’s bilateral rights policy. While hitherto, the grant of these rights had been dictated by what was perceived to be beneficial for the national carrier as is the practice among all countries, the political powers did away with the tried and tested methodology. Foreign carriers were not only allowed to operate from multiple points but were also given frequencies far beyond their traffic needs between India and the concerned country. This hurt Air India’s revenue generation capabilities. According to the official data for 2011–12, which should make policy makers sit up and take note, Dubai-based Emirates flew more international travellers in and out of India than Air India did. While Emirates cornered 13.04 per cent of the total market share of India, flying 45.32 lakh passengers in and out of the country in 2011–12, Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express jointly carried 41.38 lakh passengers, only 11.91 per cent of the total market share.