That Air India, once the country’s pride, is an unwanted baby is nothing new. The crucial issue is what to do with the national carrier? How much more money should be pumped into this hapless airline just to ensure its day-to-day survival? Rs 30,000 crores was pledged as a bailout package, and more than half has been paid, so that the jobs of 30,000-plus employees are protected. There is a sordid history behind its fall from grace, where the airline was sought to be deliberately wounded, if not killed, so that private airlines could grow.
Aircraft that were not needed were ordered by the dozen, lucrative overseas routes taken away from Air India and given to private airlines, the skies opened to foreign airlines and, mysteriously, reciprocal arrangements not availed of — the sins are too many. The previous government, and even the current one, is aware of all this, but till today no action has been taken against the guilty. It’s a situation that the government has got itself into, a kind of self-goal, as one aviation expert observed.
In 2001, the Tata-Singapore Airlines combine wanted to take over Air India. The Atal Behari Vajpayee government, under dynamic disinvestment minister Arun Shourie, decided to privatise both Air India and Indian Airlines. But the government’s Lohia socialist partner erupted, saying he wouldn’t allow the airline to be sold. The disinvestment decision was, incidentally, taken by the Cabinet in which this Lohia socialist was a participant. Air India was then very profitable and, besides Tata-Singapore, was being wooed by Emirates and British Airways.
13/06/16 Deccan Chronicle
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Aircraft that were not needed were ordered by the dozen, lucrative overseas routes taken away from Air India and given to private airlines, the skies opened to foreign airlines and, mysteriously, reciprocal arrangements not availed of — the sins are too many. The previous government, and even the current one, is aware of all this, but till today no action has been taken against the guilty. It’s a situation that the government has got itself into, a kind of self-goal, as one aviation expert observed.
In 2001, the Tata-Singapore Airlines combine wanted to take over Air India. The Atal Behari Vajpayee government, under dynamic disinvestment minister Arun Shourie, decided to privatise both Air India and Indian Airlines. But the government’s Lohia socialist partner erupted, saying he wouldn’t allow the airline to be sold. The disinvestment decision was, incidentally, taken by the Cabinet in which this Lohia socialist was a participant. Air India was then very profitable and, besides Tata-Singapore, was being wooed by Emirates and British Airways.
13/06/16 Deccan Chronicle
