This refers to ‘Air India may vacate Nariman Point HQ’(August 20). Aviation Minister Praful Patel’s decision to ask the management of Air India to vacate the iconic Air India building at Nariman Point is proof that the government is finally serious about fixing the ailing airline. If the airline has to become a low-cost airline as Patel wants it to, the company cannot be sitting on expensive real estate. The real estate sale, it is true, will only meet one-time costs, but it sets the tone on how the airline is to be run. Anyone visiting Wal-Mart offices across the world knows that the world’s largest retailer does not have fancy offices in expensive parts of the world. In an ideal situation, Air India’s offices should be located close to the airport, if not in the airport itself.
Mr Patel’s statement that Air India has the option of cancelling its orders with Boeing at very little cost needs to be taken with a pinch of salt since companies like Boeing will have penalty clauses for this — if they did not, they would be out of business everytime the industry faced a downturn. What the minister probably meant was that, when balanced against the claim Air India has made from Boeing for the delay in the supply of the Dreamliners, there would be no net outgo.
The government needs to come out with an attractive VRS scheme for Air India so as to get rid of the excess staff that Mr Patel is referring to. Unless this is done, the idea of converting Air India into a low-cost airline is not going to work.
Srinjoy Gupta, on email
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