My tenure as CM - Planning lasted from December 1968 to October 1972 when the Commercial and Planning Departments were reorganized.

At this time, I want to mention a change in Service conditions which came about during this period.  One of the greatest perks of working in Air-India was First Class travel and at that time, such a privilege was given to those staff members who were in the SSM grade and above.  I had reached this grade in 1967 and it coincided with my mother’s visit from Delhi.  The first thing I did was to call Mr. Venkataraman, then Manager Northern India and ensure that she traveled in the First Class from Delhi to Bombay.  She felt very proud that her son had (as she said) “finally made it”.

Unfortunately, this perk was withdrawn for staff based in India sometime in the early 1970s and for the life of me, I cannot remember the exact reason.  I do recall that it had something to do with a tax imposed by the Indian Government for First Class travel. My memory is a bit fuzzy on this issue and I would welcome anyone enlightening me with the exact reason.

The upshot of this new tax was that AI would have to pay this tax whenever any staff member traveled in F/cl whether on duty or on leave.  Management decided that AI would not pay this tax and so all of us in the grade of SSM and above were required to travel in Economy class.  A short time later, Top Management decided that AI would pay the tax whenever members of the Management Committee were to travel.  This would include only the M.D., Asst. M.D and Functional Directors.  

Anyone in the grade of Dy. C.D. or equivalent and below could travel in F/cl if he or she agreed to pay this tax.  The Pilots were up in arms and threatened to go on strike.  At first, Management did not relent but after a number of years, the tax was revoked  and I would once again, request some light being thrown on this issue as I am unable to recall complete details.  Old age is definitely having an effect upon me.

During my days as Commercial Manager – Marketing & Sales, I was flying from London back to Bombay.  Since only members of the Management Committee were entitled to travel First Class, being “middle management”, I was sitting in the rear of the 747 aircraft, but, thanks to the machinations of friends like Godfrey Creado and Norris Baptista, I had the luxury of 3 seats to myself.

After an intermediate stop in Geneva, the In-flight Supervisor informed me that the Chairman had joined the flight and had instructed him NOT to serve lunch to Mr. Sethi; the instruction being delivered most emphatically.  Sure enough, lunch was served to all the passengers around me and I was left alone.

Shortly after all meal trays had been cleared, the curtain separating the First Class Cabin from Economy Class opened and Mr. Tata walked though, came to my row of seats and told me to “move over” which I dutifully did.  He sat next to me and instructed the crew to serve lunch to both of us.  We both ate an Economy Class meal and sat down to a very serious discussion.

Mr. Tata told me that he had heard a rumour that I was contemplating reducing the seat pitch in the Economy Class cabin by increasing the number of rows.  Seat pitch is the distance between the backs of the seats in two consecutive rows.

I advised him that the rumour was indeed true but that no consensus had been reached.  I also mentioned that increasing the number of seats would increase capacity and in turn, reduce the “break-even” load factor.

Mr. Tata told me that yes, economics should always be a determining factor, but in his mind, passenger comfort was a more important issue.  He went on to explain his long held views that his primary objective of “quality of service” should not be compromised.  This should be foremost in our minds as it made Air-India what it was – one of the finest airlines in the world.

Mr. Tata went on to state that if we had unutilized space in the aircraft, he would rather that we put in an additional toilet which would add to the comfort of the passengers.

Guess what - on my return to work, I reminded my colleagues of this primary objective and disbanded the committee which was looking at the issue of additional capacity.

I cannot comment on the quality of service now being offered in Air-India but would only state that during my career with the airline, this objective of Mr. Tata was always foremost in my mind and with great humility and at the same time, pride, I quote below an extract from an email that literally came out of the blue sometime in 2009:

EX-AIRNDIAN THANKS YOU

Dear Mr Sethi

I just wanted to remind myself of the fact how great our Air India was during your Management days.  I am very proud to have worked under you, and you pushed the standard of Inflight Service to a new height,

30 years of happy times and a bonus DY Manager IFSD title, I voluntarily retired and migrated to Western Australia.(1989)

But this is just a gratitude and rememberance of that time.

For me I would like to remember that tall stately quiet person who made changes for the better for Air India.

I wish you well and thank you once again.

Yours sincerely

PJ Mahuvawalla

When Mr. Kooka retired and Mr. Dastur took over as Commercial Director in 1972, the Planning Department once again became an independent entity with Venkat as its head as Dy. Director - Planning & International Relations.  The one major change was that the Tariffs Division came out and continued to be part of my portfolio in my new assignment as Commercial Manager - Marketing & Sales.  I had finally achieved my objective to get back into the Commercial Department with an eye on the job of C.D.

This change in assignment was a major watershed in my career.  Where I had previously traveled all over the world attending IATA and Revenue Pool meetings, I now traveled to study the functioning of our offices and the problems they faced in getting passengers to travel on Air-India.  I visited, for the rest time, outposts such as Fiji, Mauritius and Vancouver in addition to East Africa, The Far East and the Middle East which were areas that I had never traveled to.

It was on one of these trips that I was informed that back home in India, there was a move to appoint a General Sales Agent (GSA) to sell traffic from the Punjab to the U.K.  This move came as a great surprise since we had a GSA in the U.K. who was already selling this traffic and it was one of the reasons for his appointment.  For the uninitiated, most of the Punjab and Haryana originating traffic was, at that point of time, paid for in the U.K.

I was also informed that a decision for this appointment was imminent and that a proposal had been sent by the Manager Northern India to the Deputy Commercial Director and also that it had the full backing of the Regional Director - India.  I sent an urgent telex to the Dy. C.D requesting that no decision be made until the proposal had been studied by me and the Marketing Division.  At the same time, I curtailed my trip and returned to Bombay.

On arrival, I met the Dy. C.D. who told me that he had taken the decision to appoint the GSA.  I questioned the urgency of this decision as the matter fell within my portfolio and any such appointment should have been cleared with me prior to taking a decision.  I advised Mr. Dastur of my unhappiness with this clear breach of etiquette and he agreed to hold a meeting with all present.

The meeting was held in Mr. Dastur’s office and those present were the Dy. CD, the RD-India, Manager - Northern India and myself.  It came out that the Manager - Northern India had been approached by a clerk in the office of the GSA for Air France (AF).  The GSA was actually owned by the clerk’s uncle.  AF had been in the North India market for some time and this clerk who, incidentally, would in later years become the CEO of his own airline, had handled this traffic and as such was (in the opinion of the Manager - Northern India) ideally suited to produce traffic for Air-India.

The Manager - Northern India was so impressed by this clerk that he gave him authority to go ahead with the spade work of opening an office in Delhi.  He then cleared the idea with the RD - India and sent a proposal to the Dy.CD.  I asked why there had been so much haste and why was the proposal not sent to me in the first place?

Imagine my astonishment when the Manager - Northern India confessed that he was aware that I would have turned down the proposal and that he had taken advantage of my absence from Bombay to present the proposal directly to the Dy. CD.  He further confessed that his main objective was to take credit for the revenue produced.  In other words, U.K.’s legitimate revenue credit would have been diverted to Northern India.

Mr. Dastur asked one question and that was directed to the Dy. CD - was the Dy. CD convinced that this appointment would produce substantially additional revenue for Air-India?  There was stunned silence when the Dy. CD stated that he had not looked at this aspect of the proposal.  He had accepted the Manager - Northern India’s word that AI would benefit from this appointment.

I raised two issues.  Firstly, the net effect would be a confrontation between the GSA in the U.K. and the GSA in Northern India as they would be competing for the same market segment.  In my view, the main problem was that the Northern India offices were servicing this traffic (Paid for in the U.K.) and were not getting any credit for such services.  This was, in my opinion, the root of the problem and the reason why the Manager - Northern India was pushing for the appointment.

Secondly, and more importantly, since most of the payments for this traffic were made in the U.K., how was the Northern India GSA going to account for the sales without violating Reserve Bank regulations?  It was quite apparent to me that some of the participants in this meeting were unaware of the manner in which AF and some of the Middle East airlines were handling such payments, which were well known in the market as “Hawala” payments.

If this clerk were to be appointed as the GSA, he would continue the practices of his current employer, leaving Air-India wide open to RBI sanctions.

Mr. Dastur stated that as the latter issue raised by me had so much substance and validity that he had no alternative but to terminate the meeting and that there would be no GSA in Northern India.

Although I had succeeded in my mission, I felt little joy as it brought into the open, discords which had been festering below the surface.  Secondly, the meeting did not end until after 9:00pm and I missed my younger son’s birthday party.  A couple of days later, Mr. Dastur told me in confidence that there was unhappiness among some of my colleagues with my return to the Commercial Department.  However, he assured me that I had his complete backing; an assurance and backing which became evident with my later appointments as Dy. C.D. and C.D.

It was, therefore, a great surprise when a couple of weeks later, the Dy. C.D. brought this young clerk, who had initiated the proposal, to my office.  The young man confessed that he had spent a considerable sum of his own money in the anticipation of opening his own office.  Additionally, he had upset his uncle who was now very unhappy with this move.

He requested my assistance in getting him some work as he was now unemployed.  The Dy. C.D. felt morally committed to help the clerk.  I told him that under the circumstances, I, personally, could not support his desire to work with Air-India but would be willing to get him an introduction to other airlines.  Accordingly, I arranged a meeting with the then Manager of Kuwait Airways who had once indicated to me that they had over 3 tonnes of unutilized cargo space on their daily flights to Kuwait.

I told the young man that there was a considerable movement of vegetables and fruits from India to the Gulf and that without much effort, he could fill three tonnes on Kuwait Airways on a daily basis.  One additional advantage he would have is that there was no discounting on this kind of traffic and once he had established a foothold, he could also service other carriers such as Gulf Air who had more flights than Kuwait Airways.

It is interesting to note that while he accepted this suggestion a little reluctantly, he made such a success of it that in a short while, he had become the GSA for a number of airlines.  He never looked back and in time to come, started his own airline.  I will comment on this airline in a future Blog.

Getting back to the Manager - Northern India’s move to appoint a GSA, it actually came as a surprise because he was Manager - London when the U.K. GSA was appointed and he played quite a large part in the selection of the GSA.  More on this subject at a later time.