New Delhi, (NPA): Air India strike has been called off, but the problems of the aviation industry are far from being over. The strike as been called off after an assurance by the Minister for Civil Aviation that there will be no cut in salaries and a committee will look into the demands of the Executive pilots who had been on strike for five days forcing the airlines to cancel large number of flights leading to lot of inconvenience for the traveling public just ahead of the holiday season’

This strike has come after a confrontation between the pilots and management of Jet Air, the largest airline in terms of load factor in the domestic sector. In both the cases, the management has tried to act arbitrarily. In the first case, the issue was the right to form a union while in case of Air India, it was a cut in the salary and incentives being paid to the executive pilots. The irony is that the category of executives pilots was created in the airlines by old management of Indian Airline to avoid any disruption in the flights in the event of agitation by the line pilots.

The executive pilots who belong to senior category were also given managerial responsibility in the organization Many senior pilots when offered managerial jobs were not willing to make the switch unless they retained their privilege to fly which got them substantial financial benefit in terms of flying allowance. Thus was a cosy system worked out between the senior pilots and management of Indian Airlines.

The management of new company after the merger of Air India and Indian Airlines is dominated by staff of former Air India which in its own wisdom decided to hit the executive pilots hard by unilaterally deciding to cut their salaries and allowances and also delays in making payments to them. Here the management of airlines was guilty to the extent of targeting one section of pilots instead of adopting a uniform policy for the entire industry.

The problems of airlines have many common factors for downturn like world-wide recession, fall in traffic which has hit hard even established profit making airlines like British Airways and Singapore Airlines. Many smaller airlines have been hit even harder leading to mergers and cutting down of flights. One can say most of the Strate owned airlines world over are in trouble.

The problems in India have been more acute because of gross mismanagement by present Minister of Civil Aviation. Mr. Praful Patel who allowed airlines to go for expansion of fleet at a break neck speed when signs of a recession world over were known to all without caring for its impact on the airline finances. It is a result of this policy that all carriers in India in public sector as well as private sector are suffering huge losses with the exception of few budget carriers flying on regional routes.

Second major mistake made by the Aviation Minister was that most of the new capacity was deployed on routes linking major metros like Delhi and Mumbai leading to overcapacity. This led to sale of tickets at below cost and most of the airlines started bleeding and pilling up huge losses. The Aviation Minister who took all the credit for making aviation industry expansion in good times simply washed off his hands of any responsibility in troubled times. When red ink started accumulating on the balance sheets of airlines, the in-efficient managements who ran industry like novices chose to punish the pilots by cutting their salaries and allowances. This resulted in strikes in Jet and Air India by pilots. One would like to ask if the management ever bothered to consult the pilots or other staff when they decided to add new capacity without studying the load factors or employing foreign pilots to fly the planes in boom times.

In case of Air India, additional factor for their poor performance was sudden spurt in placement of orders for new planes by airlines in domestic sector as well as by one flying to foreign destinations. The merger was a sure recipe for disaster as two had nothing in common. They operated different fleets, were overstaffed and had nothing in common which could bring benefits of merger. The staff of two airlines could not be deployed on same routes nor workshops could have a common inventory.

One would like to ask the Aviation Ministry which had been toying with the idea of a merger for several years why they did not put in place plan like common fleet so that they could enjoy benefits of scale as well as staff rationalization Situation has become so bad today that state carrier needs to be put on life support system while private carriers are close to becoming bankrupt. The Ministry of Aviation or Minister have no models to follow or clue how to save the industry except doing fire fighting.

Time has come when the industry is told to change their role model and work as efficient units. They need to copy the strategy put in place by regional carriers instead of copying western model as India can afford only no frill airline, efficiently run with reasonable fares in a price sensitive market. The airlines cry for relief because of high fuel prices need to be addressed, but one can not help but admit that majority of problems facing aviation companies are of their own creation as basic factors have not changed from the time when they were on an expansion spree at break neck speed. Aviation industry is capital intensive with small profit margin and has no place for fly by night operators or adventurers.

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