High fuel bill and employee costs have hit the aviation industry hard. About half of the airlines’ operating budgets go for fuel expenses. Uniformity in fuel pricing should be maintained. Liberalisation of the aviation sector has resulted in unhealthy competition for market share. — T.V. Jayaprakash, email

The need of the hour is caution, pragamatism and confidence to survive the crisis. The management must take into confidence all staff and send out in clear terms its intention and what is expected from employees. A combination of operating (planning and scheduling), marketing and financial skills have to be taken to a very high performance level to weather the storm. — P. Rajesh, email

The softening in crude oil prices might help the private airlines. The merging of two rival companies — Jet Airways and Kingfisher — will help in sharing passengers as many aircraft are flying half full. The Government should help private airlines tide over the crisis. — Venkatraman Ramjee, email

The Government should consider ways and means to reduce taxes and surcharges to save airlines. While enforcing cost cuts, the airlines should reduce the dependency on foreign pilots. The Government should also consider using foreign exchange reserve to arrange for broad runways, developing roads, constructing large hangers and providing fog fighting machines, gadgets for handling late flight movements on credit to airlines.

T. S. Sundareswaran, email

The trend of crude prices is downward and there is bound to be a corresponding downward revision of prices of aviation fuel also. That should take care of the escalating cost operations to some extent. As in other sectors there should be also an effort to effect savings in all sections of the operations and reduction in number of flights when the occupancy is not to the optimum mark. Raising of fares should be the last choice.

T. R. Anandan, email

The Aviation Ministry should intervene and reduce ATF prices. On staff costing, key positions such as that of pilots and ground staff are inevitable costs. Maximum effort directed towards non-essential personnel costs at ground level needs to be pruned. Strategic alliance may be worked out to reap the benefits of large-scale operations. Avoid unhealthy competition as it can kill the industry in the long run.

Ashok Jayaram, email