Will heads roll at Air India after Venkaiah Naidu's public berating?

Sarkari airline Air India had yet another flight delay this afternoon. Only this time, an important Union Minister was among the passengers and chose to fume about his experience on social media. Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu lashed out at Air India after his Delhi-Hyderabad flight got delayed, saying he missed an “important” meeting because of the delay. Delays are part and parcel of flying, should the minister have made such a big deal about it? It turns out that in a peer-to-peer comparison, Air India is decidedly the least reliable in terms of on-time performance. Whether it be domestic flights or international ones. [caption id=“attachment_2851212” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] A file photo of Venkaiah Naidu. News 18[/caption] Air India tweeted its apology to the minister while clarifying that the commander of the said aircraft was held up in a traffic jam. Commanders are required to report at least an hour before the flight so this seems to be a curious case of indiscipline. Will some heads roll now, after the public rebuke by a Union minister and an equally public assertion by the Minister of Civil Aviation A Gajapathi Raju and his deputy that a thorough inquiry would be conducted into this instance of delay? Any strict action seems unlikely against errant Air India staff, as previous such promises of inquiries show. Which would be a pity, since this instance could serve as an opportunity for concerned officials to pull up their socks. An Air India official said he knew nothing about the pilot getting delayed but the incoming aircraft was delayed due to bad weather at Delhi - which was delaying flights of other airlines too. He said the flight anyway departed after an hour’s delay from the scheduled time at 2.15 pm. And what’s an hour’s delay, never mind if your all-important meeting is missed because of a fictional traffic jam holding up the commander. Whether this was a case of rostering mismanagement, staff indiscipline or engineering/ATC issues, the fact remains that hundreds of passengers booked on Air India flights face delays which are far more frequent than those seen on private airlines. So perhaps now, at least one union minister will be favourable to the long-disputed idea of privatisaing Air India? It is clear that till sarkari babus manage its affairs, Air India’s performance parameters will remain below par. It is time airline industry professionals take command at Air India if it is to survive tough competition from private airlines. Specially, since the government has already pumped in over Rs 22,000 crore of taxpayers’ money into the mismanaged airline! Air India has been harping lately on the first operational profit of Rs 8 crore in a decade in 2015-16 — it is high time the airline also sets for itself some performance parameters. Sample this: Yesterday, a Monday, there were at least 12 delays of beyond two hours on the Air India network which were largely attributed to technical faults in the aircraft. At least one flight was delayed because the commander did not reach in time. The domestic network was anyway crippled since as many as 12 of Air India’s A320 family aircraft were grounded due to engineering issues, allowing the airline to meet its schedule with just 54 aircraft. Another four of the Boeing 777 family and two Dreamliners were also in ground due to engineering issues. It seems there are increasing cases where aircraft ready to takeoff returns from the ramp due to technical issues. Last year, $300 million which Air India raised through ECBs was earmarked for the engineering department but sources say not all the money has still been given to the department. Non-availability of aircraft remains a big reason for poor OTP of Air India. How are private airlines able to manage better operational parameters when Air India constantly battles delays? The airline continues to languish at the bottom of the OTP charts month after month. According to the latest data for May put out by DGCA, only 74.3 per cent of AI’s domestic flights arrived and departed on time in May at metro airports. This means roughly every fourth flight was delayed last month. Compare this to 90.2 percent on time performance (OTP) by AirAsia, 85.1 percent by Vistara, 83.1 percent by IndiGo and 82.3 percent by Jet Airways at the same airports and it is clear that private airlines are managing their OTPs far better. Almost 44,000 passengers faced delays beyond two hours on Air India’s domestic network last month – the highest among all domestic airlines. The stats look even scarier in the last five days. Air India’s international OTP was 78 percent, 72 percent, 65 percent  and 68 percent on June 27, 26, 25 and 24 respectively. Put simply, this means last Saturday, every third Air India international flight was delayed. For the domestic network, the stats are 79 percent, 74  percent, 76 percent, 78 percent for June 27, 26, 25 and 24. Clearly, at least two in 10 domestic flights are being delayed every day. Naidu said in his tweets that Air India should explain how such things are happening. “Transparency and accountability are the need of the hour. Hope Air India understands that we are in the age of competition. Missed an important appointment.” Accountability is surely needed, Earlier, senior officials in the ministry of civil aviation was monitoring Air India’s OTP regularly and the airline had set up a war room at Delhi airport to strictly monitor delays. Though daily OTP reports are generated, little followup action over causes for delay is seen. Now is the time to professionalise Air India if the government finds it difficult to take the privatisaton route. The airline is in the midst of appointing new independent directors as the sitting members have finished their terms. If not in the management, perhaps professional representation should be increased through directors on the airline’s board? News reports suggest that Chairman and MD Ashwani Lohani may be in the race for the post of Chairman, Railway Board.If this is true, perhaps his successor should be able to improve things at India’s national airline.