The Descent of Air India (6 page)

Crew members were suspended for not reporting on time for a flight, for missing flights without notice and for any of the numerous such transgressions. The union leaders made several attempts to reverse the disciplinary actions that we initiated; they cajoled and pleaded and threatened, but their efforts came to naught. One of the cases that led to a direct confrontation between the union and me involved an air hostess and a purser. It attracted a lot of attention and showed just how malevolent the unions could be at Air India. The air hostess and the purser were on a flight together; the overnight halt was at Rome. The air hostess complained that she had been harassed by the purser during their stay at the hotel. I suspended the purser on receipt of a written complaint. True to their style, a group of union members stormed into my office and asked for the suspension to be revoked. They termed the complaint false and said that the purser was not guilty and that I had been unfair in taking the air hostess’s word against her colleague’s. When I told them that the purser had repeatedly called the air hostess all through the evening, they refused to believe me. I then showed them the call records that I had obtained from the hotel, which clearly indicated the number of times the calls were made and the room they was made from. They retreated sheepishly.

But the battle lines were clearly drawn. I refused to let the union have a free run of the department. Fortunately, there were a few people in the management, such as former pursers Prem Sahu, Aubrey Pinto, Mohan Brito, Blair Rego, Samuel Watson and Homi Rabadi and a former air hostess P. Burby, who had all been promoted to the management ranks and were equally disgusted with the union’s behaviour. They were part of the department’s core team and had demonstrated unflinching loyalty to the management. My tough line against the union emboldened the crew members to complain about harassment by union activists, which they had rarely done earlier, and that helped everyone understand just how unreasonable the union’s attitude had become.

Yet another example of union high-handedness was in evidence when Air India decided to introduce B747-400s, effective August 1993. As the deadline for aircraft induction approached, the union demanded that
10,000 per crew member per month be paid if the management wanted their ‘cooperation’ in flying the aircraft. Instead of taking pride in the fact that the airline was bringing in new aircraft, they had yet again decided to place impediments in its smooth operations.

Anyway, I refused to play ball, and we operated the flights to USA with B747-400 aircraft, despite the AICCA boycott for eight months, with the support of the executive and unconfirmed new cabin crew. Mr Deveshwar supported me and periodically checked if we could keep the flights operational in this fashion. My reply was always in the affirmative. However, no sooner did he quit his post at Air India to go back to ITC than his successor, Captain D. S. Mathur, negotiated a face-saver for the union by way of a payment of
750 per crew member per month as duty-free sales allowance. By doing this, Captain Mathur, perhaps in a bid to appear amenable to the AICCA, played his part in pushing Air India further towards its fall.

THE GAME OF TRANSFERS

It had become impossible for the management to work without worrying about how the unions would perceive the changes, and whether their obstructive measures would derail the changes being proposed. This was the background against which we began recruiting the additional crew for the newly inducted B747-400 aircraft.

In a strange—but not surprising—move, the Human Resources Department said that the In-flight Services Department should conduct the recruitment exercise. People-induction, management and planning are the business of Human Resources, but the department was washing its hands off the responsibility. As the chairman of the selection panel, I launched a countrywide recruitment drive. When the interviews were to be held in Mumbai, I suddenly found 50–60 people storming my office. The Sthaniya Lokadhikar Samiti of the Shiv Sena political party had come to
gherao
me. They wanted 80 per cent of the cabin crew to be Maharashtrians. I tried to explain that my job was to select the best cabin crew and that for any policy-level decision, the leaders should meet the managing director of Air India at his office. But the group, led by Gajanand Kirtikar, insisted that a decision be conveyed instantly. They continued to raise slogans and create a ruckus in my room.

I finally asked them: ‘Why do you want 80 per cent Maharashtrians when we can take 100 per cent, provided they are all suitable for the job?’I explained that I wanted the right crew, irrespective of where they came from or whose recommendation powered their CVs. The group of slogan raisers had another demand. They wanted existing employees to be given preference over other candidates. I rejected that demand because experience had shown that internal candidates acted as a de-motivating force as most of them lacked passion for the job and spent their time working with the union. The union perceived my actions to be an attack on its powers, and used every opportunity thereafter to oppose my decisions. I refused to bow to its diktats, which vitiated the environment in the In-flight Services Department even further and created a potentially explosive situation.

Matters came to a head when, in October 1994, the union forced the crew to abandon a flight from New York to Mumbai, with a stopover at London. The crew went missing from their hotel shortly before call time, when the crew is alerted about the flight. The airline had to accommodate the passengers in hotels and ferry the empty aircraft to London, so that the London–Mumbai segment could be operated. We decided to suspend the entire crew complement and subsequently even those who protested the suspension orders by staying away from their flights. Almost 200 members of the cabin crew were suspended at the time, but there was no disruption of flights as the rest of the cabin crew put their weight behind the department. Significantly, the union’s ability to bail out errant crew members had been blunted, and the management’s right to manage restored to a large extent.

The AICCA, worried about its waning clout and a backlash from the existing members, started canvassing support from the officers in the department. Some in-flight supervisors from the officers’ cadre, led by Mohan Bir Singh, a former union activist, began lobbying for union membership, against the existing rules of the organisation. This was a dangerous idea;it could spell doom for the airline, as it would make it difficult to operate even a few key flights during a strike or even a token protest. Mr Singh was suspended and an enquiry was instituted under D. S. Kohli of the human resources department. Mr Kohli found him guilty. I recommended that his services be terminated. However, another member of the two-person enquiry team, a former air-hostess, differed in her assessment, not unexpectedly, since many cabin crew members remained loyal to the union even after being promoted to the officer ranks. Mr Singh was given the benefit of the split recommendation by the managing director and allowed to opt for the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS).

It was at this stage that the airline started considering a partial lockout. But just as we were mulling over the decision and finished the first round of discussions with the legal team, the managing director changed again. Captain D. S. Mathur was replaced by Brijesh Kumar, an IAS officer. Mr Kumar was looking for a quick way out of the imbroglio. His first act was to revoke the suspension orders and as punishment, order a mere one day’s pay cut. This endeared him to the union and it later turned out that they had extracted another promise from him—that of my transfer. I was not party to any of his decisions, nor was I summoned to explain my stand or reasons for refusing to bow down to the arbitrary whims of the union. He was not even interested in probing further, though had he done that, it would have been clear to him that I had had the management’s sanction for my tough stance against the union. He only wanted to buy peace.

All this came as a huge disappointment. My aggressive posture against the union had begun yielding very positive results. In the few weeks before my transfer, I had managed to restart the refresher courses for the crew, had introduced credit card payments for duty-free purchases, introduced serving of free liquor to economy class passengers and forced the union to annul the clause pertaining to ‘no take-off of flight till crew complement was complete’ without any monetary compensation. The crew had also been forced to undergo weight checks and other grooming-related measures that the union had opposed earlier. The airline was also able to introduce the meal cart service in the economy class, besides extending the range of duty-free items for sale on board the flights.

My unceremonious transfer, being the first of many in subsequent years, did upset me, but I drew a good deal of satisfaction from the fact that even a powerful union like the AICCA could be tamed, if one had the will and determination. Brijesh Kumar terminated my tenure without any discussion. And perhaps failed to realise how the unions were eroding the airline’s brand values. Alas, if only the management team had had the far-sightedness to understand the consequences of their actions!

I returned to the In-flight Services Department in May 1999 as there was possibly no one inclined to take up the assignment. It was supposed to be a short stint but eventually lasted 18 months and was abruptly terminated once again. I still do not know the real reason that led to my second stint being cut short, because two things happened concurrently.

One incident was related to a security check conducted at the Bangkok airport to prevent pilferage of liquor by cabin crew in pursuance of a management decision taken in a meeting chaired by the minister of civil aviation, Sharad Yadav. The other was my refusal to follow directions on awarding the catering contract at London to a party that had established contacts with the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Secretary A. H. Jung. Mr Jung had wanted the tendering process reversed, though the airline was saving a substantial
10 crore in the 3-year contract period, and the rates quoted by the selected party were even lower than what we were paying the existing caterer.

Pilferage of liquor has been a common practice rampant across many airlines. What matters is the extent of pilferage. In Air India, it had acquired alarming proportions, and this phenomenon had reached such a state that some crew members had begun to skip or delay the liquor service to passengers in first and business classes, so that the booty for pilferage after a flight was larger. We were conducting random security checks, but this was more of a perfunctory exercise and hardly ever yielded much, because the crew were invariably warned in advance about the impending check. Inevitably, complaints from passengers about poor service followed. In one review meeting undertaken by Sharad Yadav on 14 August 2000, the minister asked the airline what was being done about the pilferage of liquor. As the concerned departmental head, I replied, ‘Yes, there is pilferage, but to take action, support of the ministry and management would be needed.’

My previous transfer under union pressure was playing at the back of my mind. The minister assured me of his backing and also suggested (as recorded in the minutes of the meeting) that ‘the staff resorting to pilferages, etc., should be dismissed from service.’ Sanat Kaul, the then joint secretary in the ministry said that ‘apart from termination, criminal cases may also be registered against the erring crew.’ Armed with this, and in conjunction with the security department, we checked the crew’s hand baggage at Bangkok airport and—lo and behold!— found that 70 per cent of the crew had company liquor ranging from whisky and wine to vodka and beer, all pilfered from the flight. Many among the crew members caught in the security check were office bearers of the union. The impact of the successful security check was huge. The liquor consumption on subsequent days fell by 75–80 per cent of the average consumption reported earlier which should give us an idea of the quantum of liquor being pilfered by the crew. The present civil aviation minister Ajit Singh’s recent reference to instances of large-scale pilferage in the Lok Sabha in May 2012—a good 12 years after the decision to dismiss cabin crew indulging in pilferage was taken—only shows that the menace is still rampant. Like all undesirable practices, this too has passed on into the DNA of Air India. The crew involved was suspended but, while they eventually got back their jobs, I got transferred. I must say, though, that this unceremonious transfer ordered by the Secretary, Civil Aviation, A. H. Jung, concurrently holding the position of Chairman, Air India, could also have been because of the catering contract, as I had ignored all directives on the matter, acting in the interests of the company and not the individual.