The Hindu Business Line : The aviation sháh-mát

If the aviation industry is to get back on track, it needs to take a leaf out of the Indian Railways, which lets the real experts run the organisation.

— H. Satish

The absence of a clear cut policy has been the root cause for the aviation sector’s failure.

A. Ranganathan

Sháh-mát is the Persian word from which ‘checkmate’ originated. The correct meaning of the word is ‘the king is disabled or ambushed’. In 1917, the Czars were ‘red carded’ by the October Rev olution. In October 2008, the Czars of Indian aviation were checkmated and are now deep in the red, and it would require a genius of a chess champion to get them out.

Blame game

The people who control Indian aviation seem to suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder, as they tend to blame others for their problems. It is typical of those with BPD to honestly believe, while in the throes of a cognitively distorted thought process, that what they are going through is someone else’s fault. The blame game begins. Blame October, oil prices, drop in passenger load, economic crisis, etc.

October is blamed for the current debacle. What has been exposed is the failure of people who play around with numbers. The airlines had 60 days’ credit which has been increased to 90 days, to clear the defaults. These did not take place in October, which has just 31 days! Can the blame be attributed to the month? Today, we are witnessing re-defined deficit-financing — a tool that governments use. Indian aviation seems to be using this liberally. Nowhere in the world does one witness defaulted payments to the tune of more than five times the bank-guarantee value.

Vishwanathan Anand, who won the World Chess championship in October, had to transcend 1296 squares and 1092 rectangles on the chess board! He had to contend with various permutations and combinations of 32 pieces in those myriad squares and rectangles.

As Bradman was to cricket and Michael Jordan was to basketball, for bridge, Giorgio Belladonna is the ultimate in precision play. He knew exactly where the 52 cards were placed and how to use human psychology to outwit his opponents in difficult situations. He was the master of the ‘deep finesse’. In October 1967, the English team was certain of winning the championship until they were “plastered by Belladonna” in the final game.

Missing foresight

What do chess and bridge champions have in common? They analyse thousands of games and plays. They have foresight and clear understanding of pitfalls. Sadly, this kind of position play and foresight is missing in Indian aviation.

The Prime Minister states that fuel prices cannot be reduced until the oil companies come out of the red! Former British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, said: “To tax the community for the advantage of a class, is not protection. It is plunder”. His words ring true today.

Why did our civil aviation system fail? We have no clear-cut aviation policy. What is practised is the Delphi technique — a method of getting a group of ‘experts’ to agree about something but without their discussing it. And crony capitalism — a system in some capitalist countries in which business contracts, bank loans, etc., are given to family and friends of government and business leaders.

In October 1967, the Beatles released the song, ‘With a little help from my friends’. One line in the song has a lot of significance to Indian aviation — “What do you see when you turn out the light, I can’t tell you but I know it’s mine.”

For the last twenty years, the Ministry and its officials have been playing checkers with the red pieces (national carriers). They are yet to find the black square, and are getting the carriers deeper into the red. The lights have been turned out and the people are blind to reality.

The IAS lobby slowly entrenched itself into key positions of aviation — CMD of Air India and Indian Airlines, representative in the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and now, the DGCA — “I can’t tell you but I know it’s mine”.

Cooked up statistics

We have been flooded with cooked-up statistical figures to indicate a “Boomlet”. What has resulted is that an airline like Jet Airways, which was an ‘aspirational brand’, has ended up along with Kingfisher Airlines as a ‘basket case’.

Fuel prices and the current economic crisis are blamed for all the ills. When the airlines and the Aviation Ministry were making tall claims and grandiose plans a few months back, oil was trading at $130 a barrel.

It rose to a peak of $145 only for a short period and it has now crashed to $50. Fuel cost cannot be blamed entirely. Crony capitalism is the real culprit for boosting the ‘value’ of the airlines.

To use a bridge expression, airlines in India have been “coffee-housing” — making gratuitous statements, often, with intentions of misleading or confusing the opponents, shareholders and investors. They were waiting for the ‘sucker-play’, a card-play tactic that depends for its success on a blunder by weak opposition. Brazenness replaces finesse.

The Civil Aviation Ministry and the airlines have used what the Chinese call ‘hsi-nao’, which means dealing with adversaries and/or training officials.

When you pepper people with incorrect or cooked-up information constantly, we are brainwashed into thinking that the system is functioning well. Disraeli has another famous quote to his credit: “Lies, damn lies and statistics.”

Look to the Railways

If the aviation industry is to get back on track, it needs to take a leaf out of the Indian Railways, an organisation deep in the red a few years back.

The street-smart Minister left the running of the industry to the experts — the Railway Board, run by professionals who rose up in the system. This success story is being discussed at the Indian Institutes of Management, Harvard Business School and Wharton.

Let the real experts run aviation. The crumbling industry needs a Belladonna plaster. In 1991, one of the airline ventures had a premature death due to ‘belly landing’; this time around, the airlines seem to be ending ‘belly-up’.

(The author is an airline captain with 35 years of flying experience. blfeedback@thehindu.co.in)