RIYADH, 23 October 2006 — The past few days have been turbulent for Air-India, literally and figuratively.
First, one of the carrier’s Bombay-Jeddah flights hit an air pocket and quickly lost altitude. The drop was sudden and pilots didn’t have enough time to warn passengers to fasten their seat belts, resulting in ten injuries.
As if this wasn’t enough for the last full week of Ramadan, the irate travelers who were scheduled to return on that same plane had to not only cope with the usual Eid eve delays but also the delay caused by the unfortunate turbulence trouble. While the turbulence was probably unavoidable and the result of God’s will rather than pilot or mechanical error, the turbulence is a symbol for the flagging image of India’s flagship carrier. Air-India is widely perceived by Indian customers who fly frequently between the Gulf and the subcontinent to be lacking in ideal customer service. Critics have said that because employees of the airline are government workers, with all the benefits that this implies, they don’t feel the pressures that a non-governmental corporation would feel to meet customers’ expectations.
But now the government says enough is enough and has even gone a step forward by announcing the merger of Air-India with its domestic carrier known simply as Indian. It has set up a group of ministers to finalize the alliance. The Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, Law Minister H. R. Bharadwaj, Tourism Minister Ambika Soni, Suresh Pachauri (Personnel), Prem Chand Gupta (Company Affairs), Santosh Mohan Deb (Public Enterprises) and Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia will finalize the road-map for the merger.
The merger of the two carriers makes sense as the Indian’s performance has improved in recent times thanks to the government’s open-sky policy that has brought unprecedented competition to the domestic sector.
The passengers have a few good words to say about Indian and the company is purchasing new aircraft. The first Airbus A-319 was delivered to Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi a few days ago.
It remains to be seen whether the merger takes place within this fiscal year as strong workers’ unions from both the carriers are bound have their say.
