Soon after his arrival as CMD, Mr. RR informed me that one of his main objectives was to reduce expenditure, including and most importantly, have a “Zero Hiring” policy which meant that no expansion could take place.  He went further by saying that he had already directed the then Operations Director, Capt. D. Bose to cancel all pilot recruitment and training.

I recorded my serious objection to the latter directive as we needed to expand our operations to maintain and improve our market share, but he was adamant.

He also told me that he had instructed the Personnel Director that there would be no promotions of any staff in any Department for at least one to two years.

I was extremely perturbed by these developments which would have a disastrous impact on staff morale and spoke with CL Sharma and PV Gole, who was then Personnel Director.  They told me that they had no option but to accept the CMD’s instructions and that I would be wise to go along and not create “waves”.

I was, therefore, surprised when after returning from Delhi one day, Mr. RR informed me that he wanted to promote a member of the Commercial Department staff from the grade of Asst. Station Superintendent to the next higher grade.  Even before he gave me the name, I asked if he was referring to the son of the current Aviation Minister and if so, would he permit me to give him some background.

I mentioned that the Aviation Minister had come to see me during the Janata Government regime when he (a Congress party member) was no longer in power.  He had asked me to look after his son and I promised to keep an eye on him and in fact, only a few days prior to Mr. RR’s meeting with him, the Minister had called me and asked about his son’s well being.  I told Mr. RR that the staff concerned was 61st on the seniority list and to promote him out of turn would be difficult to justify particularly in view of his directive to the Personnel Director indicated above.

I suggested that he let me handle this delicate issue and he agreed.  I called on the Minister on my next visit to Delhi and told him that he could face an embarrassing situation if his son jumped 60 positions in his grade.  I recommended that given another year or two, his seniority would improve and at that time, I would be more than happy to promote him to the next higher grade.  Meanwhile, I suggested that we transfer him to Kuala Lumpur where a vacancy had occurred and this way, his added experience would help in justifying his promotion.

The Minister accepted my suggestion and I came back and reported the discussion to Mr. RR who “seemed” satisfied.  I say “seemed” because very soon after I had left the airline, there was an article in the newspapers that Air-India had promoted 63 officers in the ASS grade.  The article mentioned that in previous years and under other Managements, such mass promotions had never taken place.  Talk about sycophancy!!!!

As per normal practice, we had issued a List of Transfers which would take place on April 1, 1980 subject to exceptions where the date of transfer would create a hardship.  I received a request from one Manager for a short delay which I agreed to, little realizing that this staff would use the delay to get his brother who was a Member of Parliament to put the “squeeze” on Mr. RR.  I happened to be away on tour when my deputy informed me that in my absence, Mr. RR had agreed to leave the Manager at the same station.  

On my return, I met the CMD whose exact words were “what Delhi demands, Delhi gets”.

During the short time that I worked with Mr. RR, I found it quite peculiar that he showed very little interest in the workings of the most important department of the airline.  He never enquired how we earned our revenue; which were the regions generating the maximum revenue and most importantly, did I need any help in improving our profitability.

I did manage to get him to attend one meeting of the Senior Delay Committee which met once a month to discuss delays and how to minimize them.  The Committee was comprised of Department Heads and took its task very seriously.  At this one particular meeting, the Director of Engineering indicated that a few flights had been delayed by the Cabin crew at Bombay airport because they were unhappy with the quality of ice that was delivered by the Catering Department.  I remember Santosh Oberoi who headed Chefair stating that there had been occasions when machine made ice was unavailable and that his department had supplied “bazaar” ice which the cabin crew refused to accept.

Before anyone could comment, Mr. RR stated that while machine made ice was preferable, could “we not use dry ice instead”!!!!  There was pin drop silence and Santosh first glanced at me and then looked at the ceiling.  I never requested Mr. RR to attend any more meetings nor did I ever make any attempt in raising with him any issues pertaining to the four departments under my care.  I learnt very soon that his sole interest in his assignment was to make money for himself and his sugar daddies in New Delhi.

Soon after he took over as CMD, Mr. RR did raise with me an appeal made by three Commercial Department officers who had been superseded for promotion to the grade of Commercial Manager.  I informed him that the unlike promotions to lower grades in the department, promotions to this higher grade were strictly on basis of merit and suitability.  His predecessor had accepted the recommendations of the Senior Panel comprising the two Deputy Managing Directors and the Personnel Director and that I had personally briefed the then M.D. why these three officers were not considered suitable for promotion.  As a matter of fact, they had been “left behind” in a previous round of promotions for the same reasons.

Instead of accepting my explanation, Mr. RR asked me to have the Personnel files of these officers sent to him.  I arranged to have this done but did not hear from him again.  I do recall very vividly that these files were lying on the credenza behind his desk on the day I submitted my papers to him.

It came, therefore, as no great surprise to me when I later learnt that he had promoted all three to the higher grade soon after I had left the airline.

One day I received a Note from the CMD’s Secretary stating that one middle level staff in the Delhi office was scheduled to retire soon and the CMD wanted to give him an extension of one year.  I went up to the 22nd floor with the Personnel file of this particular staff - there was not one file; there were two as the reports on this staff and follow ups demanded more paper and space.

I briefed the CMD about this staff and mentioned that had the airline been in the private sector, the staff concerned would have been terminated many years ago.  He was a plodder and time server who showed no initiative and that we had allowed him to attain superannuation solely because he had more that one god father and that previous CEOs had agreed to keep him on and that he had never risen above the grade of a Station Superintendent.

The CMD mentioned that the request for extension had come directly from the Aviation Secretary.  I countered that:

1. In the past, we had similar instances where requests for extension had originated from Aviation Secretaries which we had declined.
2. I gave the case of the previous RD - India whose request we had turned down.  Here again, he had the backing of the previous Aviation Secretary.
3. I also mentioned that we have declined the request for extension from the previous RD - Middle East.

Bearing in mind these precedents, it would be difficult, nay impossible to justify the extension of this unsuitable middle level staff.

I had hoped that this would be the end of the matter but alas, I was summoned the next morning with orders to grant the extension.  By this time, I had had enough and told the CMD that he should issue written instructions to this effect to me and I would send back his letter refusing to do so.  He would then have to option to over-rule me.

He asked for time to think it over and I never heard of the issue again.

One day, Mr. RR sent a lady to see me about a proposal for making the film “Gandhi”.  This lady stated that her team wanted 30 First Class and 50 Economy class free tickets over a period of an year.  I asked her what would AI get in return and she was taken aback by my question.  She had assumed that as the national carrier, AI would gladly donate such free tickets, particularly since her backers were politically connected.  At the same time, she stated that when she had met the CMD, he appeared quite willing to accede to her request.

I then suggested that she go back to him as I was unable to agree.  She left and shortly thereafter, Mr. RR called and his first words were “why must you be so negative?”.  I insisted that all I was asking was for a quid pro quo.  We could not justify willy nilly grant of free tickets to whoever came from his god father in Delhi and since I could not find a QPQ, perhaps, the decision would best be left in his hands.  He muttered unintelligibly and rang off.

I left AI shortly thereafter and never learnt the conclusion of this matter.  However, I did see the film at the Asia Society in New York as Air-India’s guest.

The above incidents may appear, by themselves, quite insignificant, but taken along with other major issues, such as the purchase of 4 747s, grant of GSAs, changing the wine list on our aircraft etc., etc., gave me many sleepless nights and made me rethink deeply of my future in Air-India.

Sometime shortly after taking over as CMD, Mr. RR hinted to me that perhaps, we should have three Deputy MDs.  Both CL Sharma and I guessed quite correctly, that the Director of Operations had made his move now that Pranab Mukherjee was back in the Cabinet.  Mr. RR went so far as to tell me that in his opinion, the Inflight Services Department should be overseen by the D.O.  I asked him how, when he had been with the airline for such a short period, he had come to this conclusion.  Was he being manipulated by the D.O.?  He vehemently denied it but when pressed suggested that “let sleeping dogs lie”.

I was reminded of Mr. Appusamy’s remarks to me more than an year earlier that the culture was changing and that I should look for another job. That, coupled with the advice that I had received from both my wife and my cardiologist made me decide to start looking at other choices for my future.

I have recently been suffering from what is called “writer’s block”.  That, coupled with two quick visits to New York and New Jersey have delayed adding to my Blog.  Hopefully, I will now get back to my routine.

The latest visit to the northeast was a very pleasant one.  We celebrated Diwali and the 3G birthday of which I had spoken in my last post.  Now, let’s come back to the narration of my lack of “bonding” with Mr. Raghu Raj.

After the incident of wines to be served and perfumes for sale where I was accused of insubordination and asked to leave his office, peace reigned for a short while until I received a visit from two persons. 

These two persons (I will refrain from calling them gentlemen) were sent down to see me by the CMD’s Secretary who merely stated that they were emissaries from “you know who in Delhi”.

I asked them to be seated and requested them to let me know what I could do for them.  They answered “appoint us your GSA in USA, Canada, the U.K. and Europe”, to which I replied “how about my job?  Don’t you want that too”.  The response was “you know who has sent us so let’s get down to the appointment”.

I asked them if they had a written proposal to which the response was in the negative.  They replied that they did not need to justify their demand as they were told by the “you know who in Delhi” that AI would grant the GSA without question.  At this time, I excused my self and went to Anil Kadam’s office and called the CMD.  He told me that orders had come down from the PM’s office to accommodate the request of these two characters and that I should do the needful.

I went back and told them that I would look at their request favorably if they would present a detailed proposal to which I was give a blank stare after which they left my office.

About ten minutes later, the CMD called me and said - let me make this clear.  We have to give them what they want and so issue them a letter confirming their appointment.  I requested an audience with him to indicate why the request would be difficult to accede to.  He agreed and I went up to the 22nd Floor.  I stated that:

1. We do not need a GSA in the USA, as under the laws of that country, we could offer any fare level we felt necessary and/or give any commission level to agents. If asked to justify, we would have great difficulty in explaining why we are paying an over-ride commission of 3% without any quid pro quo.
2. We had appointed a GSA in Canada only a few months ago and it would seem odd to make a change so soon without any justification.
3. We had a GSA in the U.K. whose appointment had been viewed and scrutinized very carefully by the former Aviation Minister himself and we were give a “clean chit”.  We would open up a Pandora’s Box if we now changed the GSA.
4. We could look at a GSA for certain European countries, provided we had a detailed project report justifying the need for such an appointment.

I got the distinct impression that I had finally made an impression.  Mr. RR became quite candid and explained that the instructions came directly from none other than Sanjay Gandhi and that only country that was in play was the U.K. The other countries and areas were asked for to camouflage the main issue.  Further, he had no alternative but to accede to the fiat from New Delhi. He also stated that the two had gone back to Delhi and that I should send the letter of appointment to the Regional Manager - Government Affairs in Delhi for delivery to them.

Accordingly, I wrote the letter and sent it to Delhi for delivery to the PM’s office.  I also called the RD - UK and told him of my predicament.

Before the letter could be delivered, some maneuvering had taken place and the emissary from the Delhi office was told that certain events had overtaken the situation and the letter of appointment could be cancelled.

It was only after I had resigned that I learnt the following:

1. One of the two characters was the nephew of one of the partners of our current GSA in the U.K. and there was no love lost between the two relatives.  The nephew was a close friend of the second character who, in turn, was a close confidant - read “chamcha” - of Sanjay Gandhi.
2. Our GSA learnt of the going ons behind the scenes and arranged to deliver a small suitcase full of cash to Sanjay Gandhi who decided to let matters lie.
3. The other partner of the GSA had been unaware of this exchange of cash and felt betrayed and the two partners had a falling out.

The entire episode was very upsetting and I had quite a few sleepless nights.  So much so, that my wife gave me a book to read; the theme of which was - you cannot fight City Hall.  It was her way of saying that it was time to call it a day and to pursue other interests.