Air India operations normal after pilots end strike

State-run carrier Air India resumed normal operations on Thursday after its striking pilots reported back at work, with nearly all of its morning flights taking off on schedule.
Passengers at several airports across the country were surprised when the staff of the carrier apologised for the inconvenience caused to them because of the pilots' stir and some even got roses from the carrier.
A senior official of the carrier said some concession to woo back passengers was also on the anvil.
Air travellers in India heaved a sigh of relief Wednesday when the pilots of Air India ended their five-day-old agitation after an assurance over payment of allowances from Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel.
"We have received an official communication from the civil aviation minister. He has himself assured us that there will be no salary cuts," said Captain V.K. Bhalla, a senior executive pilot who was spearheading the strike.
The strike by Air India pilots had begun Saturday with 180 pilots reporting sick to protest a cut in their productivity-linked incentives.
01/10/09 IANS/Economic Times

Normalcy restored in AI operations, 18 flights take off

New Delhi: With the striking pilots getting back to work, operations of Air India returned to normal today with 18 of its flights taking off from the national capital.
"Flight operations have returned to normal and 18 of our morning flights have taken off for various destination as per schedule," an airlines official said.
The airlines' flights to Southeast Asia operated as per schedule. Air India also operated its Delhi-Frankfurt- Chicago, Mumbai-Frankfurt-Chicago, Mumbai-London, Delhi- London, Amritsar-London-Toronto and Ahmedabad-Frankfurt flights this morning.
01/10/09 Press Trust of India

Air India resolution puts Jadhav in a bind

Mumbai: Air India’s pilots returned to work on Wednesday after the government intervened to suspend incentive cuts, but the conciliatory move may push chairman Arvind Jadhav, struggling to save money at the loss-making national carrier, into a corner.
National Aviation Co. of India Ltd, or Nacil, which runs Air India, lost more than Rs100 crore of revenue in the five days since Saturday when at least 200 executive pilots went on strike, protesting against the proposed cut of as much as 50% in productivity linked incentives, or PLIs.
“Air India's chairman was let down by the government,” said M.S. Balakrishnan, former director of finance at Indian Airlines. “Now he will not be able to turn around his airline as he could not effect any wage cut.”
The government’s rescue plan for the airline depends on the success of a cost-cutting programme, a key element of which has been stopped in its tracks.
The pilots were assured by the management that there would be no reduction of salaries, he said.
This has severely curtailed Jadhav’s space to manoeuvre.
“Even if the employees concede for a 10% to 15% reduction during the deliberations of the newly set up committee, that will not give any significant savings to Air India,” said Balakrishnan, the former Indian Airlines official. “If he wants to turn around the carrier, either he will have to reduce the employee strength by 30-35% or (make an) equivalent reduction in wages.”
30/09/09 P.R. Sanjai/LiveMint

Air India revival plan skids off runway

Mumbai: Though the Air India pilots' strike is over, the national flag carrier's management is probably not heaving a sigh of relief. Its promise to not slash the productivity-linked incentives (PLIs) of pilots has driven offtrack its plans to save Rs400 crore through manpower cost rationalisation.
The cash-strapped airline has been desperately seeking equity infusion of Rs5,000 crore from the government to sustain its operations. The government had made it clear that funds would be allocated only after a turnaround blueprint was drawn up.
On August 29, the airline submitted a turnaround plan to the Centre, which included pruning operational costs by Rs1,300 crore in the next six months. Of this, saving from slashing of staff salaries constituted the biggest chunk, followed by a cut in fuel costs by Rs300 crore. "While we do not have much control over fuel costs, we need to look at our second highest cost, which is our employee costs," Jitendra Bhargava, executive director of Air India, had told the media some days back. Air India's annual wage bill is Rs3,600 crore of which the PLI accounts for Rs700 crore. By slashing the PLI by up to 50%, the airline was expecting to bring that expense down to Rs300 crore.
So, will the airline come out with a new turnaround plan?
Bhargava says the state-owned airline will work out a way to see that its commitment to pilots does not affect the turnaround plan too much.
01/10/09 Ramiya Bhas/Daily News & Analysis

This is no way to manage AI

Everyone seems happy—the government has promised a few thousand crores, salary cuts will be ‘discussed’ and the Air India executive pilots’ strike is off. But everyone knows that there’s a problem.
Consider, first, that it was executive pilots who went on mass leave. The difference between regular pilots and executive pilots is that the latter are not members of any union. Unionised pilots have been declared as ‘workmen’ by a court order under Workmen’s compensation Act. But it was non-workmen executive pilots who behaved like trade unionists. This is a serious problem for any organisation.
Second, while the civil aviation minister is being seen as an ultimate source of a solution, that’s not really the case. It’s not that the minister declared, rightly, that he is not the minister for Air India. The substantive issue is that AI is managed at one end by management that is “independent” and at the other end by the Cabinet and the GoM (Group of Ministers Committee). The latter have taken all decisions on major issues like purchase of aircraft or merger of Air India and Indian Airlines. If AI is to revive, it’s these entities that have to deliver. Getting them to do so is tough.
The current CMD has everybody’s goodwill. But he is basically working in a place, not quite geared to top management basics.
01/10/09 Sanat Kaul/Financial Express

Govt committed to turn around AI: Patel

The government will persist with its efforts to turn around Air India (AI) and the pilots stir will not make any difference to the initiative, civil aviation minister Praful Patel said on Wednesday. Speaking to ET Now soon after AI pilots called off their stir, the minister said the national carrier had to take a lot of tough decisions to come out of financial distress. Excerpts:
Is Air India unable to manage its relationship with employees?
I do not think that is the case. The financial health of airlines has come under severe pressure, leading to problems like the one we saw at Air India. The airline has a very high cost structure and it needs to be cut. Reduction in staff cost is one of the many measures being suggested by the airline. Cutting salaries and perks is never a popular decision. This affects employees and makes the management look like a devil. But the moment industry recovers from the financial crisis, things would ease.
Will the committee proposed to look into grievances of executive pilots consider the demands of other employees as well?
The Air India management will consult everybody before taking any final decision. It’s time everybody realises the problem and helps the company improve its financials. The management is under tremendous pressure. The airline has to cut cost and increase revenue. That is a pre-condition for securing government help in terms of additional equity. The government assistance will not come without riders.
Does the current compromise agreement mean that all executive pilots of AI return to work?
I wonder why pilots are agitating. Air India has already kept its earlier order (on cut in allowances) in abeyance and has decided to form a committee which will also include executive pilots to look into the matter. The ball is now in their court.
01/10/09 G Ganapathy Subramaniam & Nirbhay Kumar/Economic Times

Handling management grievances

Workers and clerical staff have unions, the C-suite has the decision-making powers, but how should the general cadres of white-collar managerial employees express their grievances?
This issue has been starkly highlighted over the last two months when some pilots of, first, Jet Airways and, this week, of Air India struck work over pay and allowances, holding air travellers to ransom country-wide. Much opprobrium has been heaped on them, the conventional view being that pilots, who would broadly correspond to mid-level managers in airlines, are obscenely overpaid and have no right to protest besides displaying a gross sense of irresponsibility.
The jury is still out on whether the pilots of India’s largest private and state-owned airlines have a legitimate case — the fact that both managements backed down doesn’t necessarily suggest the pilots were right. The bigger question, though, is this: if such a category of employees do think they have a valid grievance and if negotiations with senior management fail, how should they react? Is taking mass sick leave or simply not reporting to work — a strike by any other name as the Mumbai high court ruled in Jet’s case — a justified form of protest by people in positions of managerial responsibility, especially when their organisations are bleeding profusely?
The short answer from senior managers is that managerial staff who don’t agree with corporate policy are always free to leave or look elsewhere, a privilege blue-collar labour doesn’t enjoy. This is a fair argument in the kind of open labour market that India has become. Indeed, pilots have done just this in the past, exiting with alacrity from state-owned airlines to private competitors when the industry was booming; their protests now are an indicator of the dire straits in which the airline business finds itself.
01/10/09 Kanika Datta/Business Standard

AI strike over, but cost airline Rs 100 cr

New Delhi: Air India operations are limping back to normalcy after pilots called off their four-day strike on Wednesday, striking a compromise with the national carrier’s management over cut in incentives. The airline has started taking fresh bookings and most of Air India’s flights, barring two non-stop flights to New York, are expected to operate on schedule from Thursday morning.
Tough talking by civil aviation minister Praful Patel on Tuesday, backed by a strong message from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s call for an early end to the pilots’ stir, finally did the trick. The Air India management also reiterated its decision to reconsider the proposed cut in allowances of pilots.
“I have full faith on the assurances given by our aviation minister. If the minister says that PLI will be paid, then we trust him. We are going to call off our strike with immediate effect,” said senior executive pilot VK Bhalla, who spearheaded the agitation. Initially , there were reports that some executive pilots will continue to report sick, but representatives of pilots confirmed that the strike was over now.
Air India is estimated to have lost about Rs 100 crore in the last four days due to disruption of operation . Air India’s executive director (corporate communication ) Jitender Bhargava said that most of the pilots who were on sick leave were reporting to work.
01/10/09 Economic Times

Andaman fliers back after ordeal

Kolkata: The 145 tourists who were stranded in Andaman and Nicobar Islands due to the Air India stir and bad weather that prevented flights from landing two days earlier this week, finally landed in Kolkata on Wednesday afternoon in a JetLite flight chartered by AI.
The carrier's flights from Kolkata were normalized after pilots agreed to call off the agitation following assurance that the incentive cut proposal would be withdrawn and recast after discussion with the pilots. AI officials said the airline would operate additional flights wherever necessary to bail out stranded passengers.
To begin with, AI will operate an additional flight on Thursday to bring back any other tourists who may be held up in the Andamans.
01/10/09 Times of India

Government intervention ends Air India strike

New Delhi: Senior pilots at India's ailing national carrier called off their disruptive four-day walkout yesterday, after the government overrode the management's plan for a steep cut in wages for the best-paid employees.
New Delhi's about-face on the cost-cutting measures came after hundreds of senior pilots took mass sick leave, forcing Air India to cancel scores of flights and suspend new bookings for two weeks, creating chaos at airports during a busy travel season.
But while airline passengers expressed relief at the end of the agitation, Air India's troubles are far from over. With accumulated losses of around $3bn - including at least $875m last year - the carrier had been ordered to develop a credible turnround plan as a precondition for receiving a fresh infusion of government funds.
"The fundamental problem is not resolved," said Kapil Kaul, chief executive for India of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation.
"The current cost structure of Air India is untenable. I am not very sure what happens now. It will be very unfortunate if the management actually withdraws its cost-cutting."
Praful Patel, the civil aviation minister, declared on Tuesday that the decision to cut incentive payments had been put on hold, and that any cuts would be decided in consultation with the pilots.
"There are no obvious solutions for Air India within the ambit of state ownership," the Economic Times said this week.
"The best solution in the current context is for the government to not throw good money after bad, [but] rather extricate itself completely from the mess."
01/10/09 Amy Kazmin/Financial Times

ATF prices slashed by 2.1 per cent; effective midnight

New Delhi: For the second time this month, the state-owned oil firms today slashed jet fuel prices by 2.1 per cent in line with softening international rates.
The Aviation Turbine Fuel or ATF price in Delhi has been cut by Rs 812.33 per kilolitre to Rs 37,084.50 per kl, with effect from midnight tonight, an official of the Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the nation's largest fuel retailer, said.
IOC along with its sister PSUs, Bharat Petroleum Corp and Hindustan Petroleum Corp had from September 16 cut jet fuel rates by as much as 3.2 per cent to Rs 37,896.83 per kl.
Jet fuel will cost Rs 38,246.60 per kl in Mumbai, the home to the nations's busiest airport, from Rs 39,098.99.
30/09/09 Press Trust of India

Kingfisher aircraft emergency slide opens abruptly

Mumbai The Mumbai airport officials were startled when the emergency chutes of the Mumbai-bound Kingfisher aircraft opened abruptly while the crew was preparing to deplane passengers.
“Shortly after Kingfisher Airlines flight IT 304, coming from Delhi, came to a halt at its designated parking bay, as per established procedures, the commander of the aircraft asked the crew to disarm all doors. While all other doors disarmed normally, it appears that the left rear door did not get fully disarmed and consequently the escape (emergency) slide got deployed. There has been no damage to either the aircraft or any personnel..,” said a spokesperson from Kingfisher Airlines.
01/10/09 ExpressIndia

Bird-hit flight makes precautionary landing

Kolkata: A city-bound Jet Lite flight with 42 passengers on board today made a precautionary landing at the NSC Bose International Airport here after being hit by a bird mid-way.
The pilot of the Bhubaneswar-Kolkata flight was unable to estimate the extent of the damage done to the aircraft by the bird-hit and contacted the ATC to arrange for a precautionary landing, airport officials said. The flight landed safely at the Kolkata airport at 9.40 am.
30/09/09 Press Trust of India

Air India brings in Reliance General for fleet insurance

New Delhi: State-run carrier Air India is believed to have roped in Reliance General Insurance, part of Anil Ambani group, as the insurer for its entire fleet.
This is the first time that the insurance cover for Air India fleet has gone to a private insurer. Till date the same was being underwritten by National Insurance companies as a consortium.
The new cover is provided by a consortium led by Reliance General Insurance with HDFC Ergo, Bajaj Allianz and Iffco Tokyo General Insurance being part of the consortium.
While Reliance General spokesperson declined to comment and Air India spokesperson was not available for comments, sources said that Air India has also paid its first premium as part of the tender process which warrants the premium to be paid to the insurance company in four installments during the tenure of the cover.
The new cover, to remain in force for one year, would come into force from midnight today and cover all 167 aircraft of Air India across the globe.
Air India is believed to have completed all formalities for the cover earlier this week and has informed all international airports of this new cover.
30/09/09 Press Trust of India/Economic Times

Birsa Munda airport amenities for Haj pilgrims

Ranchi: Haj pilgrims from Jharkhand can look forward to a hassle-free journey and special treatment at Birsa Munda Airport this year.
They will not have to queue up with other passengers to go through boarding formalities at the terminal building as the airport authorities will set up a special makeshift structure that will have the same facilities that are available at the terminal building. Besides, a special transit flight will be introduced to take the pilgrims to Calcutta from where they travel to Medina and Jeddah.
The makeshift structure will be made of tent and will serve as a terminal building-cum-rest house for well over two months. It will have immigration counter, foreign exchange facilities, customs counter, luggage check counter and boarding pass kiosk. There will be special areas like waju (place for washing), ehram (place for changing clothes) and place for namaz. “We will meet all needs of the Haj pilgrims at the airport, including their religious requirements,” said Raju Raghavendra Kumar, the air traffic controller at Birsa Munda Airport.
He added that as the airport had so far been dealing only with domestic passengers and Haj pilgrims were international passengers, they would be treated as special.
As many as 2,700 pilgrims from Jharkhand are scheduled to go to Medina and Jeddah.
01/10/09 Santosh K Kiro/The Telegraph

It's safe to fly again

Delhi: The US Federal Aviation Authority's (FAA) thumbs up to Indian air safety standards opens up a tiny window of opportunity for our cash-strapped carriers. This means that for now, Jet Airways and Air India would be allowed to fly to the US and earn some desperately sought revenue.
But it's not just the airlines that were nervous before the US audit of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). Civil Aviation mantri Praful Patel and his babus too had their fingers crossed! Considering that India was on the verge of being downgraded to the level of sub-Saharan nations in terms of air safety standards barely a few months ago, this "A-OK" report should gladden their heart. It should also give a fillip to Praful's moves to decentralise DGCA and improve safety standards.
As we head into the season of elections and festivities beyond, the question being asked is, Is it too early to talk of green shoots of recovery in the Indian economy? A recent survey of industry has got India Inc buzzing.
According to the survey, based on corporate results from across 515 companies, the economy is likely to grow by seven per cent in 2009-10. Net profits are up by 26 per cent. One-third of the country's manufacturing sector has reported growth of up to 20 per cent. Capital goods and consumer goods sectors have expanded too.
30/09/09 Dilip Cherian/MiD DAY

Ranbir Kapoor flew in from Bangalore in economy class

Mumbai: Ranbir Kapoor's tall frame was wrapped in the stuffy economy class seat yesterday on a flight from Bangalore to Mumbai. It had nothing to do with an austerity drive.
Because of limited availability of flights available following the pilot strike at Indian Airlines and Air India, Ranbir Kapoor had to travel economy class along with director Ayaan Mukherjee and co-star Konkona Sen Sharma.
A source reveals, "Ranbir was in Bangalore for the promotional activities of Wake Up Sid. He had to return to Mumbai on Wednesday for a trial he was holding for close friends and family at Yashraj Studios. He tried to get last-minute business class tickets but because the number of the flights has been reduced drastically, he couldn't get a ticket. He chose to travel economy class instead as he couldn't miss his own trial."
Ranbir says, "I travel all the time by economy. I don't have any qualms about it. I travel to Bhopal (for Rajneeti shooting) on a common class flight a lot and have no problems with it. I am not hell-bent on only flying business or first class."
01/10/09 Amul Sharma/MiD DAY

Leela, Lufthansa partner

Mumbai: One of India’s most renowned luxury hotel groups is partnering with another industry leader. The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts has joined forces with Lufthansa, the European airline offering the most flights to India, to provide authentic Indian cuisine to travelers. For the next two years, First and Business Class passengers on Lufthansa flights to and from India can enjoy royal Indian cuisine prepared by two chefs of the award-winning Leela group as part of the airline’s Star Chefs program.
Lufthansa passengers can dine on prawn curry masala with thalimpu sadam or lal mans, a Rajasthani meat dish, or Alleppy fish curry. For vegetarians the menus offer an appetizer of moong dal pakoda chat with Imli Chutney, followed by khade masale ka paneer (cottage cheese) with jeera rice and dal tadka, and for dessert kacha golla.
With over 36 years as a chef at some of India’s finest luxury properties, Corporate Master Chef Farman Ali has distinguished himself as a pioneer in preparing fine Indian cuisine and presides over the kitchens at the group’s flagship Leela Palace Kempinski Bangalore. His culinary mastery ranges from Hyderabadi, Marwari, Kashmiri and Awadhi cuisines to those of Gujarat and the northwest frontier.
30/09/09 Hotelworld Network