Air India is finally recovering from the crisis plaguing it, Central Minister of State for Civil Aviation, K C Venugopal, said in Mumbai, the other day.
He was speaking at the Merit Award Ceremony conducted by the Aviation Industry Employees Guild in Mumbai.
“Due to improvement in performance, Air India’s market share has grown to 20.8 per cent from the 14 per cent level within a couple of months,” he said.
Venugopal added that the government is implementing the suggestions of Justice Dharmadhikari Commission, and is considering other measures, to make the airlines profitable again.
One of the measures, he said, was to review routes that were creating losses. “According to the reports on Route Economics for April-June 2012 handed over to Civil Aviation Minister Ajith Singh, only 16 out of 184 services meet the total costs. At least 99 services do not meet cash costs while 69 services meet the cash cost but not total costs,” he said.
He reminded employees that it was time to forget all differences and work with an open mind, as it was the only way to face the competition in the civil aviation sector. He also added that various trade unions can help improve Air India.
“With the help of these unions, the present on-time performance of 71.7 per cent can be scaled up to 90 per cent within two years as targeted,” he said.
The minister distributed awards to 50 children of Air India employees, who secured high marks during the last academic year.
George Abraham Vithayathil, general secretary of the Aviation Industry Employees Guild, Y E Reddy, president, and R Harihar, executive director of Air India spoke on the occasion.