The Hindu Business Line : Raghu Menon promises new flying experience

Get set for a new flight: The newly appointed Chairman and Managing Director of Air India, Mr Raghu Menon, promises to bring back the Maharaja experience for Air India flyers at a press conference in the Capital on Thursday.

Our Bureau

New Delhi, March 27 A new flying experience awaits an Air India passenger. If the newly appointed Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Raghu Menon, has his way then the airline focus from now will be on providing a better experience on the ground and in the air for the passenger.

“My main thrust will be to ensure customer satisfaction and retaining the loyalty of the passenger. My vision is to again make Air India an airline of international standard. Given the inherent talent in the company that should not be too difficult especially if all ‘Air Indians’ around the world work towards it,” said Mr Menon.

In an informal interaction with the media a day after the Government approved his name for the airline top job, Mr Menon said completing the merger process and improving the financial health of the airline are the two major issues that need to be tackled.

“It will take another 2-3 years for the merger process to be completed although 60-70 per cent of the work should be completed within the next year. The financial health of the airline has been affected by the rising cost of aviation turbine fuel and we could report a loss of around Rs 700 crore during the current year mainly on account of high fuel cost,” Mr Menon said.

For equity infusion

The new AI chief, who formally takes over at the Air India headquarters in Mumbai on April 1, is not in favour of bringing a voluntary retirement scheme to prune staff strength although the idea of Government pumping in more equity into the airline is not something that he is against.

“Rather than come up with a VRS scheme we should look at increasing the productivity employees. We also need more equity (from the Government) as the airline is acquiring more aircraft and at the moment need to take loans from outside agencies like the EXIM Bank,” he said.

Admitting that a “big job” was before him, Mr Menon felt that the 42-month-long tenure at the helm of the airline, would hopefully be enough to implement ideas that would help change the image of the airline.

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