The Hindu Business Line : AI to engage global IT cos for better asset utilisation

New Delhi, Dec. 17 Global IT majors can look forward to working with Air India on a programme that would help the airline not only make better use of its aircraft, but also rationalise the domestic and international operations.

The airline plans to soon invite proposals from global IT firms that would help the airline achieve both objectives.

“Air India could be the first domestic airline to use the system which is used by several airlines abroad.

“The savings both in financial and improvement to the asset life would be substantial although these cannot be quantified just yet. The idea is to start with a clean sheet from the 2008 winter schedule,” an airline official said.

At the moment, Air India has curtailed and reduced its operations as it faces a shortage of aircraft.

Among the measures taken include curtailing the frequency of the flights to some South-East Asian destinations such as Seoul, apart from delinking Delhi from some of the services operated to Europe and Canada.

The decision to involve global IT companies to better manage its assets comes on the back of human resource integration between the two companies being on track.

“The Executive Director level integration has been completed and the integration of General Manager and Deputy General Manager level officials will be completed latest by January next year as planned,” officials added.

Meanwhile, with Air India joining the Star Alliance, the airline is pushing to acquire separate space at Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Bangalore airports not only for itself but also the alliance members.

“A presentation was made to the airport operators during which none of them gave a categorical no to our proposal for space,” officials said.

Star Alliance is a grouping of 20 global airlines which announced late last week that Air India’s membership had been accepted.