[dupe]

Originally Posted by Nissan1180

I did a case study about SIA recently and things are not as rosy as you point then out to be. SIA is not making money and few in the airlines business are. Read the IATA report published every year to know the details. SIA was good once upon a time like AI, but now it lacks the edge when it comes to innovation, technology or capability. If you want to look at an airline that continues to innovate and grow, look at Quantas.

I do not believe that the foreign airlines are the best ( having flown many of them ) and I do not think that selling public assets is the best way to shore up Govt revenues. Short term thinking won't beget good results in the long run. People like that and in a democracy , the nation has to succumb.

I don't think Australian Government has any stake in Qantas , however there is a clause by which 51% of stake should be Australian .Hence limiting foreign ownership . There was a big uproar when it was making loss and a Russian consortium proposed investment was rejected by the government .

[Keeleri_Achu]

Originally Posted by saket77

If required, who will serve this purpose in future?

We do have one option. IAF C-17 Globemasters. They did ferry more than 2000 people from Yemen in 10 days. That was back in 2015. So I guess our government will be capable of doing evacuations, if needed, from any country in the near future. Now I don't think it can ever be matched to the scale of what was done by AI during Kuwait war. But still, the fleet of Globemasters and even C 130s for that matter, are a credible, proven alternative.

So I don't think it would be much of a concern for the government while thinking about AI divestment.

[ChiragM]

The government on Monday invited bids to sell 100% stake in Air India for the second time after its previous attempt failed. In 2018, the government had invited bids for sale of 76% equity in the company but did not get even a single bidder. Interested parties can submit expressions of interest by March 17 and qualified bidders will be notified on March 31.

The government has sweetened the deal by offering to sell 100% of its stake (and give complete operational freedom to the new owner) in AI and AI Express instead of 76% earlier. It has also reduced the debt that bidders are expected to take over by almost a third — from Rs 33,392 crore (debt of Rs 24,576 crore + current liabilities of Rs 8,816 crore) to Rs 23,286 crore mainly on account of aircraft purchase. The net worth criteria has also been slashed from Rs 5,000 crore earlier to Rs 3,500 crore. The government has also proposed to sell 50% stake in the ground handling JV AI-SATS. The government will take away liabilities due to the income tax department, against customs duty, service tax dues and guarantee fee or penal charge due to it.

The iconic Nariman Point headquarters in Mumbai and the corporate HQ in Delhi are not part of the transaction, though the successful bidder will be allowed to use it for a couple of years. Four Boeing 747s will be retained by the government for VIP use.

AI has a fleet of 121 aircraft, debt of Rs 58,283 crore (as on March 31, 2019) with contingent liabilities of another Rs 3,178 crore, 13,629 employees, wage arrears of Rs 1,383.7 crore and around a dozen recognised trade unions. AI Express, on the other hand, has 25 Boeing 737s in its fleet and Rs 1,791 crore of debt.

Source

[RM Motorsports]

Amul takes a dig at Air India

[aadya]

Originally Posted by saket77

My personal opinion is that air fares must be revised to more realistic levels. Last time, I traveled to Delhi from my home city, I paid close to 3K per head for Rajdhani Exp (2A). Though I felt that was a bit high (felt even worse reading the fine print on the ticket that railways is recovering only 57% of the cost on my journey ), but at the same time, air fare for the same destination was merely 2400 bucks!
Regards,
Saket

Always the government can ask the private carriers to do the ferrying operations in case of emergencies and we have well trained, brave IAF pilots to man the aircraft, if needed. Government can indemnify the aircraft against damage. Its not prudent for a poor country to fund such an white elephant from GST collected from Medicine and water sales(just a metaphor).

Capt Gopinath fails, Roy fails, Mallya fails, Goyal fails, Maran fails - there should be some reason behind all these people failing in the same business. Each of them has been successful in something else but burn their fingers in this business. And Ambanis and Adanis prudently keep away from this business - Any thoughts?

[procrastinator]

As a person who travels and takes the flights, I find Air India to be rich airline who gives more to the customers.
Comfortable seats (comparing with budget carriers)
Food to all and concessions on fares to lots of special persons.

Their IT and staff (not all) is mediocre whilst expenditure on them is high.

If they did not find a single buyer earlier, it makes sense to take consultancy on revamping the airlines. There will be salary cuts, layoffs and many more things for which the employees may protest but I am hopeful our government will make out of it.

[RM Motorsports]

In-depth pre-mortem of ⁦Air India Sale

What an Air India buyer will get: Debt, old aircraft, little-used Star Alliance creds and lots of extra employees.

https://www.firstpost.com/business/w...s-7962471.html

[DrPriyankT]

This may sound as a rant, but I don't want my tax money funding Air India and its employees anymore. I want my tax to be spent building infrastructure, hospitals and educational institutions, and not funding free family passes of Air India employees. Air India is a blackhole for money and it needs to be shut or sold of to professional investors who can set their house in order WITHOUT POLITICAL INTERFERENCE. The airline has a good fleet and excellent grandfathered rights at the Grade A1 airports of the world, but sadly they are not able to use these benefits for economic profits.
And we have 12 C-17 Globemaster and around 17 IL-76 Candids to do civilian airlifts when needed. We don't need Air India for it anymore.

[MSC]

The biggest irony is that people want Air India to survive but no one wants to fly Air India. Air India is the last among all options while flying. The biggest problem is that things can go very well while flying Air India. The problem arises whenever their flight is cancelled or delayed. There is next to nil support for the hapless stranded passenger. If you are alone then it is a bit problematic but can be managed. Things become terrible if you have family accompanying you.

[pganapathy]

Originally Posted by MSC

The biggest irony is that people want Air India to survive but no one wants to fly Air India. Air India is the last among all options while flying. .

There is a very simple reason. Most of us who use AI as a last option, have all had bad experiences of flight timings changed (earlier/later/cancelled) at the last minute without any information to the passengers. You only find out when you are at the airport checking in. To make it worse, the concept of customer service and help doesn't seem to exist with the staff. I remember a flight out of Delhi where I flew some private airline to Bangalore and a colleague flew AI to Bombay. We both got to the airport at the same time for similarly timed flights. My flight took off on time and my colleagues flight was cancelled. Some time after I got home in Bangalore, did my colleague take off from Delhi, and had received virtually no help from the AI staff, whether regarding the next available flight, some place/refreshment to wait or even whether there would be a flight the same day.

Assuming the same staff remain, and the new owner is not allowed to hire and fire at will, expect a privatised AI to be no better. The only benefit will be a smaller debt and less government employees flying the airline (they seem to treat it as a perk and get virtually free flights).

Honestly, I think we are better off selling the assets and closing down the airline.

[V.Narayan]

Benjamin Franklin wrote that, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results". Sounds very similar to the efforts by multiple Govt administrations where Air India and its threatened divestment goes. The main thing of value in Air India are its route rights/landing rights - some of which were allegedly sold off to foreign carriers under the UPA Govt. What else is there - Aircraft - Ok but need better care & investment; Staff - Not Ok in most parts ok in some; MRO facilities -great equipment lousy team organization but some hidden jewels here.

This pathetic institution has accumulated losses of Rs a little over Rs 53, 500 crores upto March'18. Plus I believe a further Rs 8600 crores in 2018-19. How many shulabh shauchalayas for poor women & men, how many hospital beds, how many schools, kms of road etc can be built for this money? Our babus love it because it panders to their vanity.

Till 1977 this airline was often rated as one of the top 5 or at worst top 10 in the world. When Lee Kuan Yew wanted to launch Singapore Airlines Air India was chosen to train their cabin crew and set the processes for cabin service. Air India is a classic example of what happens when we let the babus (read IAS) run an organization. The Govt is fooling itself that this entity can find a buyer. Why are we holding the tax payers money to ransom to keep this entity alive.

[Foxbat]

Originally Posted by RM Motorsports

In-depth pre-mortem of ⁦Air India Sale

What an Air India buyer will get: Debt, old aircraft, little-used Star Alliance creds and lots of extra employees.

https://www.firstpost.com/business/w...s-7962471.html

First Post Articles are complete garbage, just sensationalist headlines for getting eyeballs. Even a person doing a few minutes research on the net will come up with a better article.

The author talks about high average age of Air India aircraft. It's average fleet age is 8 years, source: https://www.planespotters.net/airline/Air-India

The average of age of aircraft in North America is 14.1, Western Europe 11.4, for India its 7.1 which is one of the lowest in the World!



Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/...age-by-region/

I won't even bother disproving his other childish arguments.

[Sparks]

Originally Posted by DrPriyankT

This may sound as a rant, but I don't want my tax money funding Air India and its employees anymore. I want my tax to be spent building infrastructure, hospitals and educational institutions, and not funding free family passes of Air India employees. Air India is a blackhole for money and it needs to be shut or sold of to professional investors who can set their house in order WITHOUT POLITICAL INTERFERENCE. The airline has a good fleet and excellent grandfathered rights at the Grade A1 airports of the world, but sadly they are not able to use these benefits for economic profits.
And we have 12 C-17 Globemaster and around 17 IL-76 Candids to do civilian airlifts when needed. We don't need Air India for it anymore.

IAF has been flying IL76 for more than 20 years, why was AIR INDIA needed at all. It’s a little more complicated to fly defense equipment into China, give it some thought. You would say they went to Yemen, well Yemen is not China.

Your Tax payer money has been taken and spent by mallya and Goyal, and put to dubious use, to kill AI in collusion with the Lutyens addresses, the irony is only the people in these addresses change.

One is in London other is thankfully here he very nearly escaped, they were all funded by tax payer money, it’s just that it’s not obvious. But the show must go on. The media uses every opportunity to tarnish AI to build a public consensus, well congratulation they have succeeded.


You have every right to fight for your tax money, but please be assured that it does not fund free passages.

When AI Becomes history get ready to pay triple the fares that are normal now.

It should be shut down, because the employees have to face the wrath of some one else’s skewed sense of business. Let the tax payer ask why are AI employees are on standby to go to China. God forbid one of them gets the infection and dies none of you would shed a tear, tax payer Money well spent. Here is a secret AI employees don’t pay taxes at all, coz they don’t get paid, but they shouldn’t be because it’s tax payers money right, but mallya and goyal is allowed to borrow from state owned banks with is tax payer money but that is just a failed business?

Amazing the knowledge that people gain and comment on without, knowing or having the gumption to blame or hold actual culprits accountable.

To build sauchalayas AI does not need to be shut. Case in point, Supreme Court order says certain telecom companies need to pay tax which was legally levied but powers that be have decided not to enforce it, and a 70 000 cr bailout package has been given to mtnl and bsnl. Why do we need MTNL and bsnl? Besides the point as it may be,

I will happy to see AI shut down, the government is insisting that brand name be retained I ask why, it’s a tarnished name reeking of tax payers money. Let’s kill it once and for all where in experts can move on.

[DrPriyankT]

Originally Posted by Sparks

I will happy to see AI shut down, the government is insisting that brand name be retained I ask why, it’s a tarnished name reeking of tax payers money. Let’s kill it once and for all where in experts can move on.

More than selling it, I too am in favor of shuttering it, along with non performing PSU's like MTNL and BSNL. We are a country which is short of money and we cannot put money down the drain trying to prop them up.

Coming to the point of fare rise, Air India barely has 15% domestic market share. When Jet shut down, the prices spiked for a bit, but then normalized quickly, if my memory serves me right. Also capacity was quickly filled in by other carriers which normalized prices. For example, Jet had at its peak three daily flights to London from Mumbai, while British Airways had a pair and Air India had one flight. When Jet shut, yes prices spiked, but now are back to normal since British now has 3.5 flights per day, Virgin has one and AI has one. The market forces will stabilize the market.

PSU's if managed well like NTPC, SAIL, NMDC and ONGC can be good profit making entities for the government and their growth should be encouraged, but loss making ones like the ones I mentioned above, have no right to stay alive on tax payer money for such a long time.
And I agree with you, evaders like Mallya and Goyal who have taken all for a ride should be dealt very strictly.

[srini1785]

The problem started way back around 15 years ago when some people high up in the bureaucracy ladder decided to merge the loss making Indian Airlines (anyone even remembers that name now?) with the relatively decent profit making Air India. The India- Middle east route was a monopoly of Air india. There were even reports of people standing through the entire journey. It was over booked with premium. It would not have gotten this far had better sense prevailed.

It was all down hill after the merger. The same is now happening with banks. If a company makes loss , just do it the american way, close it, period.