NEW DELHI, July 24: While various levels of the Government will be busy next week looking for a managing director for Air India, a thought that'll probably never cross their mind is that of giving the beleagured carrier genuine autonomy. In fact, while most of us are quick to condemn it as inefficient and unfriendly, it's a wonder that Air India is projecting profits this year after its huge losses last year. Not surprisingly, when speaking to The Indian Express in Singapore earlier this week, Civil Aviation Secretary M.K. Kaw identified lowering of Government equity in Air India as one of the key factors in turning it around. Consider the facts. Air India has been wanting to buy new aircraft since the last three years but political dithering - and possible deal-making - has prevented it from doing so. It is forced to fly uneconomical routes because the Government is not willing to let it decide where it wants to fly. In January this year, for instance, the airline decided it would reduce its flights to Durban and operate only during the peak season (November to February. The next month, it decided to cancel operations to Perth, and to reduce the number of flights to Toronto. Just the normal kind of rationalisation of routes that any commercial airline takes, right? Well, according to Air India officials this annoyed the ministry officials who felt that they should have been consulted before such a decision was taken! Interestingly, now that Air India has got into an alliance with Air France, it doesn't make sense to fly some European routes like Zurich, Amsterdam - it remains to be seen whether Air India will be allowed to take its own decision on the matter. Pulling out flights for Haj pilgrims to Mecca recently also did little to help its image as an airline that means business - this was a decision imposed on it by the Civil Aviation minister C.M. Ibrahim. It was well-publicised at that time that Air India was forced to curtail flights to Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris.Of Air India's saga of woes, the ones relating to the medium-range-capacity-long-range aircraft are clearly the worst. The lack of new aircraft, for example, ensure that even today, the airline uses fuel-guzzling older aircraft like the Boeing 747-200 for most of its destinations in Europe and Canada - the Boeing 747-200 uses up roughly 30 per cent more fuel than the newer Boeing 747-400. Apart from the higher fuel costs, the problem is that Air India just doesn't have enough traffic to these destinations to justify using such large aircraft. It is therefore able to fly full passenger loads for around six months in a year and loses money the rest of the time.The plan was to buy 23 MCLR at a cost of approximately $3.3 billion (Rs 11,550 crore). A committee was formed to evaluate various competing aircraft and in December 1995, the first (of several more, it now appears) five-member technical committee of Air India voted in favour of Boeing's 777-200.Air India MD clarifies NEW DELHI: In response to press reports, including in this paper, Air India managing director Brijesh Kumar clarified that he had not written to the ministry of civil aviation on his own on the Caribjet deal and the role of his deputy Michael Mascarenhas and the airline's deputy managing director (vigilance) N.C. Padhi. Kumar told The Indian Express that a complaint was made to the Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) about Padhi and Mascarenhas - following this, he was asked by the ministry and the CVC to investigate the matter on 30-12-96. He then conducted an investigation, and sent his report to the ministry at the end of June. As to the timing of his report, he said he had to submit it before he relinquished charge, later this month.
