Air India
May 2, 2011
Air India which is India's government owned airline is a cesspool of corruption,sloth,mismanagement and inefficiency.Most of the the aircraft are worse than the second class cabins in Indian trains with cobwebs hanging and dirt piled around.The air hostesses are rude and hostile and over aged as well.The airline has one of the highest manpower to aircraft ratio in the world with more than 200 per aircraft.The airline routinely loses thousands of crores each year which is wasted on the employees who seem more like arrogant owners than workers.Government officials and politicians treat the airline as their personal property making passengers wait in case they are late.Note its not uncommon to find that the seats are torn up and dirty.If you are unlucky you might even find rats running on your feet as the dirtiness invites rodents to make Air India their home.While all airlines have faced tough years,even the worse private airline does not have rats running through them.
March 7, 2011
Some of the airplanes make a rickety bus in Indian cities seem better while the service staff can be highly rude.Note most of these jobs are secure for life giving very little incentive for the Air Indian employees to improve their performance.As a result you can expect the worst.While a number of PSUs in India have improved tremendously after public listing and liberalization,Air India has seemingly got worse.The company makes massive losses and has to be bailed out by the government.There is total lack of accountability in Air India and little impetus for reform.The government ministers want to keep the Air India to keep milking money.A new panel has now suggest that the government of India keep giving regular billions to keep the airline afloat as it flies to unprofitable routes.Another stupid reasoning because these routes can be easily be auctioned out to the lowest cost private airline.Why the government needs a state owned airline is beyond me as it can easily commandeer the aircraft of private airlines in times of war etc. like the US does.But then how will corrupt ministers make money.