This article was published in Time of India op-ed on 6/6/2019
Air India, a brand that often fuels
emotions and also nationalism is easily one of the most well-known global
brands. And why not, with a network of over seventy domestic and forty
international destinations, it is an airline with a reach.
Except for the last decade and a half
or so, Air India was always regarded as a great airline. This national carrier
of India was well known for its service to passengers, with the Maharajah logo being
an apt icon. Sadly of late, its sheen faded because of the down slide the
airline witnessed since the turn of the millenium, in its finances, market
share and services.
Founded by the legendary JRD in 1932,
Air India had for long been India's showcase to the world and with marginal hiccups,
it continued to perform reasonably well till such time it and its sister domestic
airline continued to fly separately. The beginning of the decline also timed
itself with the governmental interference that this commercial enterprise in a
highly competitive sector started facing in right earnest.
This has been the sad story of the
public sector in India. Regularly cursed for inadequacy in performance, the
public sector at large has invariably been the victim of the same very people
who curse it in the first place. Excessive interference, a plethora of rules, processes
& oversight and a pervasive environment of fear has dampened initiative and
acumen for taking risks - the most crucial traits required for running
businesses successfully.
The merger, pushed through without
fully appreciating the chemistry of mergers and apparently to satiate the
english word - synergy, coupled with
other decisions forced down the airline, initiated its downhill slide. The ban
on recruitment ensured the absence of fresh blood and ideas and the stress on
tendering procedures coupled with the over indulgence of vigilance set-ups that
rarely differentiate between malafide and procedural mistakes, hastened the
free fall.
For businesses, one loss making year
is enough of a wake-up call to initiate corrective measures, yet at the national
carrier, the debt was allowed to pile up over the years. A turn-around plan
that subsequently emerged was by no stretch of imagination as such for it
conveniently avoided addressing issues relating to leadership, human resource,
processes, delegation and organizational culture, and merely remained confined
to equity injection to meet debt service requirements. The plan only helped a
sinking ship to remain afloat, not ride on the waves.
Despite being more of a railroader than
an aviator, it hurts to witness the descent of an airline that was an iconic
one till almost the turn of the millennium. An organization that acquired one
of the finest art collections and that in the yesteryears really cared for its
men an aspect easily visible in the adequacy of built and acquired residential
quarters, had to be a great one.
Yet along the way the organization
did stray and piled up a mountain of debt. Simultaneously, neither its growth
nor administrative processes kept pace with the changing requirements of the
twenty first century. That despite the serious issues it faced and continues to
face, the airline still retains its inner strengths - the tremendous reach and
operational and technical excellence, indeed says a lot.
It is a harsh reality that
governmental systems are ill suited for running commercial organizations in its
fold, more so an airline business that is very high on competition, regulation
and technology yet has very thin margins that too have a propensity to vanish
with the slightest flutter in fuel prices.
For many of us Indians, the sight of
an Air India aircraft stimulates a feeling of national pride. At airports beyond
our shores it gives the feel that home is right there. The only airline with
India in its name shall always evoke this feeling regardless of its ownership.
