A very different one ~ TOI reports that over 1,000 Air
India
boarding
passes were recovered from a passenger at the Kolkata airport on Friday, 29th
Mar 13. The recovery triggered alarm bells in security circles as boarding
passes are critical documents that allow passengers access areas usually out of
bounds to anyone other than genuine airport users. The passes were recovered
after a SpiceJet security staffer manning a baggage X-ray monitor became
suspicious after he discovered a box in Satyendra Verma's bag that appeared to
be full of currency notes.
There is no restriction on carrying money other than
during the election time. But the official decided to check the bag, leading to
the recovery. The passes were all blank without any details printed at the
check-in counter and printed in Mumbai. All the passes appeared to be
original. Verma (42), a Nalanda resident
claimed himself to be a farmer and told
his interrogators that his brother-in-law had given him the box and he was
clueless about what it contained. He was to carry it to Port Blair and handover
it to somebody else. Police are trying
to verify the claim.
The Maharaja – Air
India
,
the flag carrier airline of
India
is not in great pink. From its days of
glory, AI has slipped to 4th
place in domestic aviation sector following economic losses in 2012. From being the largest operator in the Indian
subcontinent to be relegated to, behind low cost carriers like IndiGo,
Spicejet, and its full service rival Jet Airways does not augur well for the Nation.
Following its merger with Indian Airlines, Air
India
has faced multiple problems,
including escalating financial losses.
Not all is well for the State-owned AI which is having multiple
problems, such as enormous market share losses, declining profits, and
escalating labour disputes. An official panel that recommended measures to
enhance savings of ailing Air
India
,
has suggested that the national carrier take cue from no-frill airline model
and prune costs, including those on its 26,000-strong staff. The five-member panel headed by IIM-Ahmedabad
Prof Ravindra H Dholakia is understood to have recommended that the airline
conduct technical efficiency audit for manpower rationalisation. Understand
that there are slew of recommendations made by the panel including suggestion that the national
carrier should seek government nod to issue tax-free bonds of Rs 10,000 crore
to enable it retire its high-cost debt.
Noting that passengers buy tickets from agents and the airline ends up
paying one per cent commission to them, the Dholakia panel has suggested
shifting to the 'zero commission' norm as per global practice and asking agents
to charge a service fee, the sources said.
I had earlier posted about the dream plane - American
aircraft manufacturer Boeing's most-anticipated passenger jet - the 787
Dreamliner aircraft from the stables of Boeing - The Boeing Company is an
American multinational aerospace and defence corporation, founded in 1916 by
William E. Boeing in
Seattle
,
Washington
. Boeing is among the largest
global aircraft manufacturers by revenue, orders and deliveries. It was touted to be most fuel efficient and
very passenger friendly with host of new features. The aircraft was expected to become the
mainstay of AI’s global operations and was being touted as key to its
turnaround plan. For AI, the plane has been configured to have 256 seats — 18
full-flat business class seats and 238 in economy.
There was trouble on air and dreamliners globally were
grounded in Jan 2013 arising out of
trouble linked to battery failures.
First ANA and Japan Airlines announced that they were grounding their
Dreamliners pending an investigation; Chile-based LAN Airlines followed and
soon Air
India
also grounded its fleet of six Boeing 787 aircraft under orders from Indian
aviation authorities.
Apart from the safety concerns, these grounding meant more bad news for the loss-laden Air
India
, which
had pinned its hopes on returning to profitability by making intelligent use of
the Dreamliners instead of fuel guzzling 777s.
Now Firstpost reports that Air India suffers ‘Rs 20 cr a week loss due
to idle Dreamliners’.
Firstpost report on 28th
Mar 13 states that the losses Air India
is incurring due to grounding of its Boeing 787 ‘Dreamliner’ fleet have risen
to as much as Rs 20 crore a week. Since 17 January, when the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) of the
United States
asked airlines around the world to grounded B787s due to battery problems, Air
India
has had
to implement a major restructuring of its fleet utilisation. Air
India
is the only customer in
India
to have
ordered and received l6 B787s till now. It was scheduled to receive two more by
March this year besides another six till March 2014. So in all, as per the
original delivery plan, the airline would have had 14 Dreamliners in its fleet
by March next year. In the initial weeks, we were told that schedule
restructuring and use of other, less fuel efficient aircraft was costing Air
India Rs 30-40 lakh a day incrementally. But speaking to reporters today, Civil
Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said, “Air
India
’s losses from Dreamliner
grounding are Rs 20 crore a week….thats what I remember being told”. This means
the daily loss has climbed to over Rs 2.86 crore a day!
Singh said the airline will seek
compensation from Boeing for the grounding but did not specify how much. He
agreed that it could be adjusted against future orders but no decision has yet
been taken on how much compensation will be sought and in which form. Separately,
aviation regulator DGCA said on Tuesday that there was no confirmation on
whether the Dreamliners would be certified fit for flying in April. Boeing has
begun some test flights at its end but no dates have been announced by when it
will certify all the 50 Dreamliners sitting on the ground around the world
would be allowed to fly.
When the Dreamliners were grounded
in January, the Mumbai-Singapore and Chennai-Singapore flights of Air
India
were combined and operated on an Airbus 330. “This means the Mumbai passengers
to
Singapore
have to stop in Chennai, which many do not like. But we were left with no other
option,” an airline official had said at that time. Also, Air
India
had to cancel its five-times-a-week
service between
Delhi
and Narita airport in
Tokyo
because of
Dreamliners’ grounding. But it has continued to serve the two overseas
destinations of B787s by deploying B 777LRs on
Paris
and
Frankfurt
legs. Sources within Air
India
have
earlier acknowledged that Dreamliners have given the airline myriad problems in
the last few months. These include an instance when the doors of a Dreamliner
cargo flight would not close, once the air conditioning system did not function
inside the aircraft and there have been problems of fuel leakage too. But all
these instances were seen as “routine” with airline officials saying such
problems occur with many new aircraft but are corrected by the manufacturer as
time goes by.
Dreamliners are the backbone of Air
India
’s
revival. Though flights to
Paris
and Frankfurt
are not affected as yet, Air
India
’s
plan to become the only Indian airline to launch direct flights to
Australia
this
summer is already in shambles.
With regards –
S. Sampathkumar
30th Mar 2013.