Cannes, in the south of France, was once again the venue of the 1968 IATA Fall Conference on passenger fares.  It had always been AI’s practice that the delegation would stay at the hotel where the Conference was held.  Room charges would be paid by AI and each delegate would be given an allowance to cover all three meals.  From experience, it was felt that the allowance was never adequate and one could never indulge in a really good meal.  It was always a sparse and frugal meal.

We had also noticed that some delegations stayed in apartments and thus cut costs.  The PIA delegation had in fact, been staying in apartments since 1960.  I suggested to Mr. Kooka that perhaps, we may experiment on this occasion and he agreed.  With the help of our Paris office, we rented two small apartments in the same building quite close to the Conference Centre and.  The apartments were quite well furnished and each one of us took over some tasks.

My wife, Manju, was with me during most of our stay in Cannes and she agreed to supervise the cooking of some meals.  Breakfast was mostly had at the apartments before going to the meetings.  Lunches were always at or near the Conference site.  Dinners were sometimes cooked in the apartments depending upon the scheduling of meetings.  

We were able to get some agreements on fares, although, if memory serves me right, the transatlantic airlines could not reach an agreement.  One incident of note took place during this trip.

We decided to invite senior members of some airlines to a cocktail party at our apartment.  Unfortunately, none of us realized that the date we had selected coincided with Karva Chauth, a one-day festival celebrated by Hindu women in North India in which married women fast from sunrise to moonrise for the safety and longevity of their husbands.

That evening many invitees came with flowers and bouquets for Manju in honor of her fast which she could not break until she had seen the rise of the moon.  That day happened to be a cloudy one and we did not get to see the moon until after all the visitors had left and my poor wife was almost fainting because she could not even drink a sip of water.  Luckily, VP Ganapule who had been keeping a vigil on one of balconies suddenly spied the moon and shouted - The Moon, The Moon and she then broke her fast.

The hiring of an apartment was not a success and we reverted to the practice of staying at the Conference hotel.

1968 saw a number of changes in the Commercial Department.

A new post of Deputy Commercial Director was created ostensibly to groom someone to take over from Mr. S. K. Kooka who would retire in 1972.  Also, we had a fairly large number of senior executives who had been overseas for many years and there had been unhappy voices clamoring for some changes as the posts occupied by them appeared to have been “reserved” and denied to those who had worked in India for far too long.

It was rumored that an informal agreement was worked out among these senior overseas staff.  I had mentioned in one of my earlier Posts that Nari Dastur wanted to come back as Commercial Director only after Mr. Kooka retired but due to a personality clash, he was unwilling to come back as Dy. C.D., awaiting his turn at the job.

According to the same rumor, Peter Mahta was prevailed upon to come and spend 4 years in Bombay as Dy. C.D. on the understanding that he would return to NYC in November 1972 as R. D. - USA & Canada.  Nikka Qadir took over from him during this 4 year period and Venkat from Delhi was promoted to take over the Middle East Region from Nikka.  Nari Dastur stayed on in Europe until Mr. Kooka’s retirement.  However, due to the same personality clash, Nari never did get the Dy. C.D./R.D.  grade and stayed as a Regional Manager until he took over as C.D. in 1972.

Changes were also made in the Planning Department at the same time.  This Department, which had become a fully independent Department in 1963 lost its full grown status when Adi Dubash left to join IATA.  It came back under Mr. Kooka’s control.  Luis Cabral left to join Kuwait as his move to take over failed.  I was promoted as Commercial Manager - Planning and reported directly to Mr. Kooka.

Ever since I joined Air-India in January 1957 (except for my initial training period), I had a desk in the large room on the 4th Floor of the Bank of India Building.  With my promotions from Junior Officer to Asst.Station.Superintendent, then to Station Superintendent and Station Manager, I had stayed in this same room.  About a year after taking over as Tariffs Manager (in the Sr. S.M. grade), I shared a cabin with Joe Andrade.

This all changed with my new promotion as C. M. - Planning.  I received my letter of promotion to C. M. Planning one afternoon and I went to Mr. Kooka’s office at the end of the corridor to thank him.  At no time during this meeting did he give me any inkling of what was also in store for me, nor did I dare ask.

It was only the next morning when I came to the office and was met by Narvekar, our Administrative “major domo” who directed me to my new office.  I had been given my own cabin right next to Mr. Kooka's.  Even today, I have difficulty in describing my emotions when I saw the nameplate “I. D. SETHI”.  It was then that I realized that I had finally “made it”.  It took almost 12 years.  I was now 33 years old and the youngest person in the grade of Commercial Manager/Regional Manager.  

My promotion brought back the memory of my interview with Mr. Kooka in January 1957. He had asked for my ambition and I had replied “Your Chair”.  Even though my office was now next door to his, I knew that there was a very large gap between the two offices and I resolved to make certain that I would not only fulfill my duties and responsibilities but also justify the faith that had been placed upon me by my superiors. 

Let me digress and speak of that nameplate.  It was removed and placed outside the door of every cabin that I occupied in the coming years until its final resting place in the corner office of the 17th Floor of the Air-India building at Norman Point.

One day, we were “honored” by a visit of the Parliamentary Committee on Hindi and during our meeting with them, I was asked why our nameplates were in English?  They should be in Hindi, I was told and when I said that not all of our visitors not read Hindi, I was “instructed” to have new ones in Hindi placed alongside.  For some inexplicable reason, I must have “seen red” and was determined not to accept such an “instruction”.  And so,when the meeting ended, I told Narvekar (yes, the same “major domo’) to remove all nameplates on the 17th Floor.  By now, everyone knew our names and there was no need to incur any additional expenditure just because this Parliamentary Committee wanted to replace English spelt names.

To the best of my knowledge, there were no nameplates on the 17th Floor when I left the airline in 1980.

A very interesting change took place at the time of these major changes in 1968.  We, in the Tariffs Division, were always guided by the wishes of the Sales Division and overseas Regional Heads in determining fares and rates policies.  With my taking over as CM - Planning, Mr. Kooka agreed with my suggestion that such policies would henceforth be decided by me under his direct guidance. 

I had mentioned to Mr. Kooka that we, in the Planning Division, were quite capable of conducting Market studies and would be better suited in developing Air-India’s pricing policies.  He agreed and the coming years saw a number of major changes in Air-India’s attitude to IATA’s rule which required that all fares and rates be agreed unanimously among airlines operating on any particular set of routes.

We started with the India - U.K. route.  Our marketing strategy, if there was indeed one, had been designed to carry business traffic in both directions and incoming tourist traffic to India.  There was another segment of the market which had been “ignored” and which had become the preying ground for Arab and other Middle East carriers.  This was the low yield emigrant traffic traveling from North India to the U.K. and the VFR traffic moving in the opposite direction.

It soon became evident to us that unless we obtained our rightful share of this market, we would have great difficulty in filling the 747s and other large capacity aircraft which were on the horizon.

We spoke with our British colleagues but found little enthusiasm.  They seemed quite content to let the 6th freedom operators cater to this market.  We could not get satisfaction at IATA fare meetings as the unanimity rule always came across as a barrier.

It was at this stage that the idea of a Charter Subsidiary was mooted and it was by hindsight that I came to realize that Mr. Kooka’s brain had been working towards this line of thought as he had been looking at full time Chairmanship of this airline after his retirement.

Our first move to attack this market came in 1969 with the introduction of a westbound emigrant fare which we introduced by an Order of the Indian Government with the tacit and reluctant approval of the British.  Our initial success had some repercussions.  Our cabin crew showed great unhappiness in the “quality” of our new passengers and the state of our cabins once the flights left New Delhi for London.

At Mr. Kooka’s direction, I took one such flight and asked Michael Mascarenhas to accompany me.  I was traveling in the First Class cabin in which there was no apparent effect.  However, Michael who traveled in the Economy Class cabin had rushed to breathe fresh air as soon as the doors open on landing at Beirut.  

I passed through the aisles in the Economy Class and noticed how many of the passengers had discarded their shirts and trousers and wore nothing more than vests and shorts.  There was a distinctive “aroma” in the cabin.  I examined the toilets and found them in disarray.  I spoke with the cabin crew who were disembarking at Beirut and they said that were thankful that their shift had come to an end.

On our return to Bombay, I suggested to Mr. Kooka that one possible solution would be to limit the carriage of these passengers to one weekend flight only and this way, all other India - UK flights would be “spared”.  He agreed and the lone weekend flight was thence known as the “Emigrant Special”.