Business Standard

Air Indias Delusions Of Parity

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Sunanda K Datta Ray BSCAL

British Airway's decision to abandon Calcutta is a reminder that however fine a principle reciprocity might be, it does not have much relevance between unequal partners. Business sense lies in making the most of asymmetry; not pining for an illusion of parity.

That insistence would have been meaningful if Air India could match the world's reputable airlines in quality of service on the ground as well as in the air. The Indian businessman in Singapore who replied in eye-popping surprise when I asked if he was travelling Air India, "You mean I should pay my hard-earned money to fly Air India?" was articulating a universally felt truth.

 

Indirectly, he also provided an explanation for Sharad Yadav's jaunt to Singapore with a high-powered delegation. For many Indian functionaries, the shortest route from New Delhi to Kathmandu is via Singapore. The Indian mission there is under constant pressure to arrange just one business appointment during visits so that shopping sprees can be passed off as official tours and charged to the taxpayer. Finally, and shamefully, the Singaporeans were convinced that the Tata-Singapore Airlines joint venture would have materialised if enough palms at the top had been greased.

Yadav may have weighty matters to discuss and sombre decisions to take. We are told that the joint venture could be revived, that SIA might invest in Air India, and that the civil aviation minister will cast a critically appraising eye over Changi airport. All this would have carried greater conviction if the Tata-SIA project had not been treated with shabby greed, and if policy had not seemed determined to waste the Rs 21 crore spent on effecting some modest improvements in Calcutta's international terminal.

Air India's discontinuation of its only international flight from Calcutta might be explicable since costs and visa restrictions make Tokyo (the eastern terminal) a rare destination for Indians. But there must have been plenty of takers for the west-bound flight to Bombay and London. However, nothing could have been more mysterious than the decision some years ago to stop Air India flights to Perth and Sydney via Singapore.

The planes were packed; getting a seat meant waiting or pulling strings; being offloaded in Singapore was a real danger. When Australia was suddenly wiped off India's aviation map the market buzzed with rumour and speculation that was not at all creditable to Air India's senior managers.

Nationalistic hackles will rise at the suggestion that Air India should accept less abroad than a foreign carrier gets in this country, but it's all a question of market forces.

I am sure that the Indian Motion Pictures Association was justified in complaining that its American equivalent, which exported American films to India, had not kept to its side of the bargain to import a commensurate number of Indian films. This was before the United States was flooded with over a million Indian settlers whose principal cultural sustenance is churned out by Bollywood studios. Indians audiences here demanded American films; Americans there were not as keen on Hindi, Tamil and Bengali films.

Standing on principle and patriotism, the IMPA then proceeded to cut our nose to spite the American face and cancelled the contract. Instead of the good films we used to see, we were fed a load of rubbish selected by an immigrant distributor in America who either imposed his own taste on us or consciously catered to society's lowest common denominator or was just out to make a fast buck.

The same interaction of demand and supply affects airline operations. It would certainly be most satisfying if India's national carrier carried a full load of passengers and cargo to every major destination and if, in return, all the world's principal airlines touched down at all our airports. But do we cite reciprocity to stop sending tourists to Europe? Or does America use the same argument not to buy from India?

British Airways reportedly has enough cargo and passengers to keep the four weekly Calcutta flights going. But it became a different ball game altogether _ as the Americans say _ once flights, landings and stopovers had to be matched, and Air India demanded exactly the same benefits at Heathrow.

Another complication is Air India's frequent inability to take advantage of the facilities that it does enjoy. For instance, it may not have enough aircraft to operate the full quota of permitted flights between India and Britain _ passengers from Singapore booked to London via New Delhi have often been stranded because aircraft have been diverted to the shorter but presumably more lucrative Gulf traffic.

Just under five years ago, a new aviation pact with the United States won Air India access to Chicago, Houston, Atlanta and Miami in addition to existing landing rights at New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. I don't know how many of these routes are used, but it would make no sense if Delta or United Airlines were denied equal operational facilities simply because Air India cannot afford to take advantage of its entitlement.

What eastern India needs is an open skies policy that enables international carriers to serve Kathmandu, Dhaka and Yangon (perhaps Paro, too, one day) as well, in addition to the needs of the people of ten Indian states for whom Calcutta is the only business hub. Not a dog in the manger attitude to preserve a creakily inefficient and loss-making Air India's pretence of parity with other airlines.

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First Published: May 20 2000 | 12:00 AM IST

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