June 27, 2015

A lady named Neena Pawar once wrote:

QUOTE: 

I HAVE LOST MY SMILE....

and YOU can bring it back for me...My heart sheds a tear as it looks at the deteriorating conditions of our wondrous airline...

As I walk down memory lane..I see a small hangar in Juhu, with the smell of oil and grease, mingling with the mud and slush around it... I see a small team who shared successes and failures as together, with their sweat, they built up this venture, which later became Air-India.

They were a happy family who loved aviation. It was this family of the early years that carried Air-India to its heights, when 75 percent of the passengers who chose us came from countries which had their own airlines. They preferred us as we were excellent in our quality of service,......we offered something special, something unique...

Caring...Punctuality...Safety...Good Food..Service..

We made passengers feel important..the airline business was an addiction...we paid attention to details...Perfection is in trifles...but is no trifle..

Remember the day that you joined Air-India..how happy and enthusiastic you were...

How proud you were to tell people you worked for AIR-INDIA..you could almost see

the envy in their eyes....and that made you feel even better..

The word AIR-INDIA was synonymous for Quality

Now it seems to be a thing of the past..

Where did we go wrong?................................................

……………………………………………………

UNQUOTE

What Ms. Pawer wrote says it all.  We were a truly great airline and speaking for myself, I was always “proud to tell people” not only that I worked for Air-India but grew up in that airline.  

She ends by asking “Where did we go wrong?”

This is a question that I have asked myself for many decades, even before I left Air-India and I have come to the conclusion that there is no single reason that we can point to which caused this great Organization’s downfall. 

Before I try and look for the reason(s) of the downfall, I would like to talk about the early days and why I consider them to be Air-India’s glorious days.

As Ms. Pawar says “We were a happy family who loved aviation”.  The reasons are very simple.  We were taught by people who knew the business; encouraged by our bosses to use our initiative and be innovative.  We were rewarded and took pride in our own achievements.

With a few exceptions, our promotions and assignments were mostly on merit.  I say “few exceptions” because there definitely were instances where favoritism was evident but these were overshadowed by the larger number of meritorious advancements and placements.  I can offer a number of examples, but will limit myself to a few.  When I joined the airline, I spent over a month at the ticket counter at the New India Assurance Building and my colleagues were all Traffic Assistants.  Many of them rose to the top, among them - TK Pillai, BK Mangaokar, TK Rao.  Hari Kaul is another example of one who joined as a Traffic Assistant and became Commercial Director at the end of his career.

There are others like me who joined as Junior Officers or Asst. Station Superintendents and became Department Heads.  Harish Malik, Ashok Vaish and Saroj Datta come to my mind.  Interestingly, I shared a bachelor apartment with all three of them.  Did that infamous A Road apartment in Churchgate have anything to do with this?  

No, the fact is that we were encouraged by people like BR Patel, Bobby Kooka and  Adi Dubash who were all very hard taskmasters but at the same time, motivators and speaking personally, that to me, was the most important reason for my love for the airline.  I was motivated and encouraged.  I worked hard, put in long hours, showed initiative and was rewarded.  I am reminded of one occasion when my wife came to pick me up at around 5:30pm and parked the car in the “tunnel” at the AI Building at Norman Point.  One of the Security staff came up to her and asked who she was waiting for and when she took my name, he made a remark to the effect - Yes, I know Mr. Sethi and have seen him leave the office as late as 11:00pm when we were housed in the old Bank of India Building.

As such, I entirely concur with Ms. Pawar’s remark that we were a happy family who loved aviation.