In my previous Blog, I had mentioned that according to the statement made by the Minister of Civil Aviation, Air-India’s aircraft utilization and Load Factors had gone up in the year 2105/06 and that total revenue was also up by 3.4%.

However, a recent article in Livemint (May 19, 2016) gives a much clearer picture - passenger revenue actually DECLINED marginally; a fact that the Hon. Minister failed to inform the general public.

And now the CMD, in one of his Blogposts has blamed the national air carrier’s woes on “the merger with Indian Airlines that never took off as expected and previous bosses who pinned the responsibility on employees for its dismal state of affairs”.  He goes on to say “It makes me sad when the common employee is often blamed for the ills of the organization, in this case too, whereas the real reason for the debacle lies elsewhere, in my opinion on the head honcho”.

Interestingly, the CMD fell short of actually saying that the merger was a wrong decision.  Was he actually agreeing with the decision and, if he was, then, in my opinion, he is playing a “political game” as his own future depends on his political bosses.

The CMD’s statement indicates that in his opinion the actual implementation was incorrectly carried out by the “head honcho”.  He does not say who this “head honcho” is, but to my simple mind, he can only be referring to either one or both the CMDs who held this post prior to Mr. Lohani taking charge.

I don’t hold any brief for either Mr. Jadhav or Mr. Nandan, but in their defence, I must emphasize that they were handed an almost impossible task of trying to merge two diametrically opposite cultures.  I would, at the same time, blame the powers that be for selecting two Babus who did not have the expertise or background to be handed this most unenviable task.  In addition, they were given no free hand to deal with the unions who placed innumerable road blocks.

Ideally, what the Government should have done would have been to invite outside Consultants who had the requisite knowledge and experience in merging these two entities.  Instead, they gave the job to a political hack whose answer to all issues was to ask “how high” when his master told him to jump.  These two Babus who masqueraded as Chief Executives knew that their Annual Appraisals were signed by their immediate bosses and that they had no alternative but to toe the line.

I cannot speak of the climate within Indian Airlines, but I am aware as was everyone who had worked in Air-India  that the morale had dropped immensely.  It worsened even more when the merger was announced.  It is no secret that the IA senior staff very gleefully taunted their AI counterparts with the statement - TUMHARA LOGO BUT HAMARE LOG.

To accomplish a merger with this kind of atmosphere was a herculean task and the two previous CMDs were neither equipped with the expertise nor did they have carte blanche authority to make waves.  In other words, they were at the wrong place at the wrong time.

At the same time, I must express my disappointment with the current CMD to place the blame on the shoulders of his predecessors.  When he accepted this position, he knew very well the mess that he inherited.  To openly criticize his predecessors is not a very gentlemanly thing to do.