Read an interesting article where a Mexican Prison was running a restaurant for the public. The restaurant was staffed by inmates of the prison and attracted a very large upscale clientele.
For some reason, the article took me back many years to the late 1970s when a Manager at one of our African stations was held in a local prison for a number of days and we were unaware of his whereabouts. We notified the Indian Embassy who were unable to help. It so happened that the Manager was quite outspoken against the policies of the then Government in that country and one of the local staff took umbrage at this attitude.
This local staff reported the Manager to the Government authorities who put him in the prison. While in the prison, this Manager refused to eat the food served to him and stated that he was a vegetarian and would eat only Indian vegetarian food. The prison authorities looked at some Indian restaurants in the city and fortunately for him, picked on the one restaurant that he frequented.
The owner of this restaurant promptly notified the Indian Embassy that he was supplying Indian vegetarian food to an inmate and suspected that this inmate was none other than the person that the Embassy was looking for.
The Embassy promptly took notice and with their efforts, managed to get the Manager released upon the condition that we withdraw him immediately from that country, which we did.
Getting back to my last Blog, I have two more anecdotes to relate about the then Aviation Secretary (Mr. Naik). I was informed by Head Office (22nd Floor) one day that Mr. Naik would be leading the Indian delegation to Nairobi for talks with the Kenyans and had asked that I, in my capacity as Dy. MD, be a member of the team.
I took this opportunity to convene an African Sales Conference in Nairobi and assembled a team for both the Bilateral talks and the Sales meeting to join me on this trip.
Our flight to Nairobi was scheduled to depart at an early hour of the morning and Mr. Naik asked me to join him for dinner the night before in his suite at the Centaur hotel at Bombay airport. Dinner, unfortunately, became a very late one as Mr. Naik was in the mood for drinks and good “Shayrie”. I don’t remember the exact time I staggered into my bed, but it was very close to departure time and when I boarded the aircraft, I mentioned to the Inflight Supervisor that I wanted to sleep and did not want to be disturbed for breakfast.
I had two seats in the last row in First Class. The IFS made me a bed and I lay down to what I hoped was a long sleep until we were close to arriving in Nairobi. Unfortunately, my colleague and dear friend Avinash Mahajan (then C.M - Marketing & Sales) decided to tell the air hostess that she should wake up the sleeping gentleman in the last row for breakfast.
When she stated that she was told not to disturb Mr. Sethi, Avinash informed her that he was Mr. Sethi and that the sleeping gentleman was Mr. Mahajan, who needed to eat meals at regular times for medical reasons. So, I was rather rudely awakened, by a pat on my backside and told to get up, straighten my seat back and get ready for breakfast.
I do not believe that air hostess ever made a faster 10 yard dash back to galley when I threw away my blanket and promised to sack her if she dared to touch me again. I also believe that she went to the IFS and in tears, related the incident. The IFS gave her another ear bender when she described the passenger who had spoken so rudely to her.
By then, my sleep had been disturbed and I managed to calm her down after both of us received an apology from Avinash Mahajan.
The meeting in Nairobi went off quite well except for a minor issue. The Secretary informed our R.M. that he wanted “paans” to be served during the meeting with the Kenyans and a plate was produced accordingly. The Secretary took one pan and passed the plate to me. I took one and soon felt unwell. I excused myself and went to the toilet where I brought up my breakfast and when I had not returned to the meeting for some time, the R.M. came looking for me and found me in a rather disturbing state.
A doctor was summoned who quickly diagnosed the problem. I had eaten a paan which contained tobacco, something which I had never taken before. I did not attend the meeting the rest of the day and spent the entire time in my hotel bed.
During our visit to Nairobi, Mr. Naik brought up the name of our Sales Manager in Manila and asked if this person could be transferred to a U.S. or European station. I told Mr. Naik that I would take his request under advisement. It is pertinent to mention that on my return to Bombay, I did not take the desired action but placed a notation in the Personnel File of the staff that he should NOT be transferred to either the USA or Europe upon the end of his current posting as we would not and could not tolerate or encourage any staff using political influence to get the posting of his/her choice.
It is interesting to note that the staff concerned did eventually get to the USA, but that over a decade had passed before such a posting came through.
My next encounter with an Aviation Secretary came when Air-India hosted a meeting of the IATA Traffic Committee, of which I was a member. The meeting was held in New Delhi and as the host airline, I requested my colleagues in the Travel Industry to host a cocktail or dinner. This would also give members of the industry an opportunity to meet members of the Committee who were very senior officials (Senior VPs and Commercial Directors) of various airlines.
I was delighted when the Travel Agents Association of India and the Hotel Federation hosted a function.
At that time, Air-India was handicapped in that we could not serve alcohol at our functions and so, we found a large residence in New Delhi where TAAI hosted their cocktails in the front lawn and Air-India hosted a dinner in the lawn at the rear of this residence.
Invitations were sent out to all concerned including senior Government officials involved in Aviation and Tourism.
The then Aviation Secretary, a Mr. Bhatnagar declined the invitations from TAAI and AI and went so far as to make an official complaint of Air Chief Marshall P.C. Lal, our Chairman that AI was flouting Government orders on the question of serving alcohol.
The Air Chief spoke to me about the complaint and with a smile on his face, said that I had committed a grevious error - I should not have invited the Aviation Secretary.
The last Aviation Secretary that I had the dubious pleasure of working with was a Mr. Venkataraman and while I did meet him on various occasions, including Board meetings, one incident will always remain in my mind.
During my career with Air-India, I must have “stepped on some tender toes” and there was some animosity and jealousy among my colleagues. There were occasions when anonymous complaints were made to various authorities, such as the Central Board of Investigations (CBI) and members of Parliament, including the Committee of Public Undertakings of which the “illustrious” Jyotirmoy Basu was the Chairman.
The majority of these allegations were false and one in particular was the issue of accepting other airline documents from our GSA in the U.K. for payment of dues.There is a background to this and while it is lengthy, I will record it for greater understanding of the issue.
Way back in the mid 1960s, IATA convened a special meeting of the IATA Traffic Committee of which Mr. AF Dubash, then Planning Director was a member. He asked me to accompany him and accordingly, we went to London to attend this meeting. Certain countries such as Nigeria and Iran had very strict foreign exchange regulations and the transfer of funds was prohibited except for specified categories.
Some enterprising Travel Agents hit upon the idea off issuing Miscellaneous Charges Orders (MCOs) in the name of passengers originating travel in those countries. The MCOs were issued for various journeys and had been honored by many airlines throughout the world. In the early stages, the airlines whose documents had been issued had no difficulties in transferring funds overseas and made settlements through the IATA Clearing House.
Some even more enterprising agents, who were GSAs for various airlines throughout the world, decided to to request their principals to accept unused MCOs and tickets issued in these countries, in lieu of cash, as payments for travel documents issued by them.
Later on, problems arose when the Governments concerned “woke up” and realized the drain on their foreign exchange reserves.
The meeting in London was to find a solution for those airlines who, having honored the MCOs, now found themselves out of pocket for services rendered. The meeting did resolve the problem and then decreed that only tickets issued for continuous journeys originating in such countries would be honored in the future. Carriers would instruct their GSAs and Agents not to issue MCOs any more.
That was sometime in the mid 1960s. Fast forward to 1979 and while I was in Boston recuperating from a heart by-pass operation, I received a call from Hari Kaul, Dy. C.D. that the R.D. - UK had proposed that we accept MCOs in lieu of cash payment from our GSA. These MCOs were issued in Iran.
I informed Hari that I was surprised that this issue had reared its ugly head once again and gave him the background of what had transpired many years ago. I told him that under no circumstances should AI agree to accept these MCOs as there was a very good chance that the airline(s) whose MCOs were issued would reject our billings. I also told him to place on record our conversation, which he did.
Now, coming back to the issue at hand. In April 1980, the newly installed Government, in its infinite “wisdom”, appointed Mr. Raghu Raj and our new CMD. It soon became apparent to me that we were going to be in deep “doo-doo”.
At a meeting in the house of the then Aviation Minister (J.B. Patnaik), Mr. Raghu Raj was handed two Notes, detailing a few items that he was instructed to “take care of”. One of them (I will speak of the other items in a later Blog when I talk of the Raghu RAJ, as distinct from the Parsi RAJ and the South Indian RAJ) was a request from our UK GSA:
“To grant full cooperation, including acceptance of other carriers’ accountable documents…”.
Raghu Raj asked me to “take care of it” and after giving him the background, told him that we should not give in to this request. Unfortunately, he was following the brief given to him on his appointment and he instructed me, in no uncertain terms, to act upon this request.
On my return to Bombay, I had a meeting with the Director of Finance and a committee comprising a member of his Department and Ranga Rao worked out the procedure for acceptance of such documents. I sent Raghu Raj a Note accordingly. The date was May 20, 1980 and I still have a copy of the Note which carries Raghu Raj’s remark “Noted” and signed on May 21, 1980.
I made photocopies of this and other Notes, thanks to advice which I received from Jimmy Martin, our then P.R. Manager.
In early August 1980, a Communist Party of India member of Parliament raised a question in which he accused me (I.D. Sethi) of violating IATA norms and authorizing the acceptance of these documents. This accusation was mentioned on the front page of the Times of India and I was summoned to Delhi for a meeting with Mr. Venkataraman, the Aviation Secretary.
I briefed him but he appeared to be in no mood to listen to me. He would not even look at the various Notes in the file. He even went to the extent to state that if the accusation was true, he would have me sacked. By then, I had had enough and told him that once he read the file, he would not have the guts to take action against the person who issued the instructions.
I left his office and went to see Rafiq Zacharia, the Congress member of Parliament, who I had met on various occasions and whom I considered a friend.
I showed Rafiq the file with the various Notes and he told me that he would speak with the CPI Member and get the question withdrawn, which was done. But the “pin pricks” had taken their toll and it would not be long before I took the ultimate step to leave the airline. More on that later.
