Report on Air India

Date: 10 December 2010

Falaq Farooq

Submitted to: Steve

Acknowledgement

This is to certify that the work I am submitting is my own. All external references and sources are clearly acknowledged and identified within the contents.

Executive Summary Air India is a flagship carrier of India, but from past few years this airline is undergoing with lots of trough and crust situation. The recent happening was the Friday, 22nd October 2010, midnight when AI 130 flying from London to Mumbai got stuck while taxing to the bay. This problem of AI-130 blocked the runway halt for more than 55 minutes causing trouble to several incoming flights which were in niche of time were diverted to Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.

Sol 1) Incident that occurredwas sudden and shocking, it was lucky timing that it happened inthe mid night when the flight operations were very slow. The scene would have been different if this incident would have happened in peak time of morning and evening.

These all features lead to the downfall of Air India. Air India being government operated airlines, started going in slum leading to less operations, less productivity, more liability of staffs and pilots and high debts on and over the organisation. It was reflecting that Maharaja - the mascot of AI is losing his wisdom of sky and also of ground.

This incident not only raised the figures on an over to the flagship carrier but also to the staff and management and government. With this incidence with other airlines even airport faced lot much problem including security staff and primarily passengers who were of much importance and concern. It was the captain of the plan who reported smoke emanating from the landing gear of the aircraft and failure in the landing apparatus and the airport emergency services were immediately pressed into service and they sprayed foam on the right-side landing gear.(Zeenews, 2010)

People especially media who are only hunting for news and can build un-predictable stories on one small issue have no idea how critical is the internal phase of an organization. Especially when the company is at a phase when it is with high growth and low market share, that means, according to BCG matrix the quadrant of Question marks is proactive. There was a time when Air India ruled India and was at a position of Star with High growth and high market share. But with present condition the business of Air India is in critical condition From Star, it has rolled down to Question mark stage and by no means would we officials like to see it in state of DOG with low growth and low market share.

Government is supportive to Air India. They still want this airline to grow and progress. Being a national carrier, government and internal staff, both are joined to build and re-

bring Air India with a notion to destroy negative image that has been created by media for Air India in public. Sol 2) According to various press releases and Air Indias performance update, it has been reflected that the airlines has able to manage build profit in its cash and various operations in its domestic business (Indian Airlines) after two years of massive loss. This increase in performance has helped the airline to give a boost to various officials and prompted us to work more forcefully and focused with proper strategic vision to bring Air India out of all debts which are covering the airline heavily.

Interestingly, not only domestic, even international Air India's cash loss has also gone down to Rs 500 crore from Rs 1,142 crore (Business Line. 2010) which is a step towards achievement. Other than passenger movement, Air India also carry load known as freight and interestingly this airline has also shown load factor increase by 5 per cent and its yield

Sol 3) Air India needs lot to be worked on especially in the scenario when the competition is high with the full service and low cast carriers taking a lot of lead within Indian skies. In my opinion, the critical issues that Air India should deeply consider should be:

1. Creating a Compelling Organizational Vision: Doing this and team working on a specific vision for an organisation is important and must. The way Air India after so much of loss has been able to improve and cover much of its debts, more concentration, more work in team strength and more good and healthy and result oriented communication and bring Air India again a leader of Indian Airlines industry and Maharaja may get his wisdom back.

2. Developing and Mentoring Employees: New staff joining is again important, especially those who can build best possible use of that the position and their post. Hence, building entry of educated, responsible and vision oriented people.

3. Building a Workplace Community: Its the staffing and the dedication of work that can build an enhancement and Air India as a workable organisation to be an interest of.

4. Negotiating and Managing Critical Relationships: Another not so easy task which Air India senior officials should be aware of. Negotiation in many terms like staff salaries, purchase and sale of aircrafts and various other procurements, there need high knowledge and information that should be there with the staff and other senior officials.

Managing critical relationships brings the concentration and dedication towards the highly enforced and challenging topic like building customer relationships and maintaining a promise and follow a relational aspect with them, also by bringing new offers and new approaches, so that people start becoming frequent flyer customer of Air India.

Sol 4) No company wants to build a wrong image in any manner. In recent past there happened some really unexpected happenings that have given wrong impact of Air India to the nation. However, we have taken the responsibility and promised to work on and improve on the same. In future, we have made it a point that our aircrafts should go timely for their regular checks, our pilots and staffs have proper sleep and all parts and parcels of aircraft should be at right position before takeoff.

However, for the recent happening of Aircraft getting stuck up on the runway creating trouble for some of other landings, which were diverted to other stations, Air India takes the responsibility of happening and ensures that corrections will be done and mentoring and effective care will be taken so that the same thing should not repeat in future as lives of passengers value to us.

Sol 5) For Airline business, aircraft when it is flying or say is in air, its then when it makes profit. This is the concept that generally airline companies follow. Today all competitors of Air India, be it other Full service carriers or low cost carriers, they do various types of advertising and media relations within aircraft and with people boarded on aircraft flying from a source to a destination. Air India needs to work strategically on this. Air India plans to bring year 2011 and beyond profitable and the organisation in well mannered and defined way so that it can re-collect the lost trust and Maharaja can get his wisdom back. Officials in Air India are concentrating and also planning to get in touch with many corporate to offer them space to advertise their products on board. With benefits to corporate advertising, Air India is also undertaking features to build media relationship to bring and build positive picture to the nation and wide.

Conclusion Hence, it can be stated that Air India hasgood future and the bad spots that have got laid on Air India can be taken off, if the people working within company startimplementing some good rules and regulations and follow and do work on time and with concentration, things can improve for Air India and the Maharaja can get its space, name and fame back again.

References Ambler, G. 2005. Five critical business issues for the new year.The Practice of leadershipOnline, [Internet] 20 January. Available at: http://www.thepracticeofleadership.net/2005/01/20/five-critical-business-issues-for-thenew-year/ [Accessed on 07 December 2010]

Zeenews, 2010. Air India plane stuck on Mumbai runway, ops hit. [Online] Available at: http://www.zeenews.com/news663257.html [Access 6 December 2010]