Tag: Air India

Government Puts MTNL, Air India and Other PSUs On the Sick List, Might Be Shut Down

The present Indian government had the mammoth task of bringing the Indian economy back on track. There was a need for radical reforms to pay off the country’s debts and boost the development process. There was though no mention of the radical reforms in the budget, but the government seems to be in a cost-cutting mode and has tabled a list of 65 sick public sector undertakings (PSU) in the Parliament whose future hangs in the balance.

The government has said that of the 65 heavy loss-making PSUs, it is shutting down five companies including the three HMT units. The Minister for Heavy Industry, Anant Geete informed the Lok Sabha during question hour that the employees of such PSU’s will be offered “very good” voluntary retirement schemes.

Air India, founded by J R D Tata in 1930, has been gathering huge losses

MTNL and Air India were the most prominent addition to the list of sick PSU. MTNL or the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited is the state-owned telecommunications service provider in the metro cities of Mumbai and New Delhi in India and in the island nation of Mauritius in Africa. It was founded in 1986 and had a monopoly over New Delhi and Mumbai till 1992. The company has been struggling lately due to immense competition from private operators. MTNL has said that it has sent a revival proposal that is currently under the consideration of the department of telecommunication(DoT).

Air India, on the other hand, was founded by J R D Tata in 1930 as Tata Airlines. It has been India’s national carrier since 1948. The public owned airlines has been gathering huge losses and has slipped to the third spot behind Indigo and Jet Airlines.

Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Mahesh Sharma said that it was important to have a flag carrier for the country and so there are no plans for shutting down Air India. He said that the government is infusing the allocated funds in Air India as a part of its turnaround and financial restructuring plan, approved by the UPA government in 2012. Shutting down the national carrier would have been embarrassing for the country’s image.

These PSUs were declared sick as they incurred losses worth 50 percent or more of their average net worth during four previous years. Some of the reasons for their losses are obsolete plants and machinery, heavy interest burden, resource crunch, surplus manpower and shortage of working capital.

Indian Government PSUs sick as they incurred losses worth 50 percent or more of their average net worth during four previous years.

The board for reconstruction of public sector enterprises (BRPSE) has recommended revival packages for 48 CPSEs, which has been approved by the government. Some of the other companies in the list are Scooters India, Hindustan Shipyard, ITI and Hindustan Cables.

This is still a news in progress, and more details will be available soon. It seems like the government is seriously considering measures to trim down the fat so the resources of the nation can be used efficiently. But the government also needs to take care of the welfare of the employees who have given their lives to these companies.

March 12, 2015
Air India Finally Gets on Board! Launches its Official App and Twitter Account

Seems like Air India is finally awake from a deep slumber. It has officially launched a new app for smartphones to make bookings simple and convenient even while you’re on the move. Better late than never, Air India has also officially boarded the micro blogging site Twitter with a new account @airindiain.

As already mentioned, the app should facilitate quick and hassle free bookings along with providing user oriented information like fare details, check ins etc. The app is only available only on the Play Store for now, though will be rolled out for iOS soon.

The airline already has a Facebook page and getting onto Twitter account would be considered a step in the right direction. This makes Air India the sixth Indian airline to have an account on Twitter.

????? / ???? ?????? ???? ???? ????? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ?? ?? ?????? ?? ???? ?? ???? ?? —-> @AirIndiaIN

— SANJAY BAFNA (@sanjaybafna) October 22, 2014

“We will be launching our Twitter account in the next few days,” said Rohit Nandan, chairman and managing director of Air India. “I know it’s a tough task for us to be there, but we have to improve our customer services and I think this is the step in that direction. This will keep us on our toes. We would try to do our best so we can solve customer queries in real time. And gradually scale up our efforts,” said Nadan in a report published by Times of India.

October 22, 2014
Boeing 787s Set Take Off Again, But Is It Too Late For Air India Now?

Boeing Co.’s 787 Dreamliner is poised to resume flights in Japan, ending a more than three- month hiatus that grounded numerous planes owned by airlines around the world, including our country’s national carrier, Air India.

The 787, Boeing’s newest and most technologically advanced plane, is the first airliner to make extensive use of lithium-ion batteries.

Lithium batteries weigh less, store more energy and recharge faster than conventional batteries, making them attractive to aircraft makers and their airline customers.

The world’s total fleet of 50 Boeing 787s had been grounded since January 16 as Boeing and investigators tried to determine why one aircraft battery caught fire and another smoldered, forcing an emergency landing. Both cases concerned aircraft owned by Japanese airlines.

The battery system was designed with four layers of protection against overcharging, and overcharging wasn’t suspected in the two January incidents.

Boeing did some of the safety testing on the 787 battery system, but testing was also performed by a subcontractor, Thales of France, which made the 787’s electrical system, and by battery maker GS Yuasa of Japan.

To solve the problem, Boeing made changes to the battery design and added a steel enclosure to prevent any overheating from affecting the plane.

Too Little Too Late For Air India?

A technical team from Boeing is in India and will install new battery systems in the national carrier’s B-787 fleet by early May, which the airline officials say will give them ample of time to restart services on existing and new routes.

“A Boeing team is arriving in India, in addition to another team which is already present here. They will be making some key technical changes to the battery system of at least two aircraft at a time,” a senior Air India official said.

The grounding of the fleet was bad news for Air India.

The airline grounded the aircraft after the Directorate General of Civil Aviation asked Air India to stop using the Boeing 787 till the problem with a battery on board had been sorted out.

In February, it was revealed that Air India flew some of its Boeing Co 787 Dreamliner aircraft even after U.S. regulators grounded the global fleet the month before after the battery problems.

Dreamliners operated by India’s national carrier were flown to Mumbai for maintenance reasons, Arun Mishra, the head of India’s civil aviation regulator, had said.

“When the Dreamliners were grounded, they had come to Delhi from Frankfurt and Paris. Air India asked us for permission to take them to Mumbai because they have their maintenance facility there and also they were paying very high parking charges in Delhi,” Mishra, director general of civil aviation, told Reuters. “We gave them permission with strict orders that no passenger will be allowed.”

Air India had deployed the Dreamliners on long routes due to the efficient operation of the aircraft. After the grounding of the fleet, the national carrier incurred heavy losses as the Dreamliners had become their most lucrative source for cash flow. The airline was looking at the induction and use of the Boeing 787 aircraft to turn around its financial fortunes. The fleet was generating revenues of Rs 2 crore a day when it was in service.

Air India had booked 27 Boeing 787s in a mega deal in 2006 and is supposed to get seven more planes in 2013.

The airline was operating its six B-787s from Delhi to Bangalore, Chennai, Dubai, Paris and Frankfurt. The Dreamliner has been instrumental in replacing the fuel-guzzling Boeing 777 on some international routes, thus saving on costs and increasing efficiency.

Air India had booked 27 Boeing 787s in a mega deal in 2006 and is supposed to get seven more planes in 2013, five in 2014, six in 2015 and three in 2016.

But for the carrier, the problems don’t end here. Most of the Air India’s fleet has been rendered inoperable due to negligence and poor maintenance.

As Business Week reports, the carrier, which has lost at least 281 billion rupees ($5.2 billion) since April 2007, is saddled with $8 billion in debt. It owes 42.5 billion rupees to jet fuel suppliers, Panabaka Lakshmi, India’s junior minister for petroleum and natural gas, said in parliament on March 8. Among its 16 grounded planes are leased jets it hasn’t returned to their owners because it can’t afford to refurbish them.

The return of the Dreamliner might turn our national carrier’s fortune around, or is it too little too late for Air India?

April 28, 2013