Working as the number two in Airport Authority of India’s (AAI) cargo department and being the airport director of three airports in India, how much would PS Nair, who quit his government job in 2006 to join the GMR Group, have seen and experienced?

A lot. In fact, interesting and challenging things started happening to Nair very early in his career when he joined Air India as a management trainee in 1977. Born and brought up in Calicut, he also studied there before joining Air India. For the four years that he spent with the Maharaja, Nair worked mainly in the cargo section. And then he moved to the Airports Authority of India but not for very long. Soon, the late Dr V Kurien sought his services for helping out with ‘Operation Flood-2 white revolution’.

That was the time when India was working on improving its milk supply and Kurien, at the helm of affairs, needed someone who had “logistical experience.” His responsibilities included the nationwide distribution of dairy products (for making re-combined milk) donated by the European Economic Community countries.

Nair was requisitioned from AAI and made in-charge of port operations for Operation Flood-2.

“The call (from a trusted lieutenant of Kurien) came as a bolt from the blue. Like me, Kurien was from Calicut but I did not know him personally. My job was to ensure the unloading of milk at the port, getting it on to 400 trucks and ensuring that it reached every nook and corner of the country so that milk fights did not break out the next morning. How we managed it I do not know. If I faulted even for one day, the result was milk riots,” he now laughs.

While Nair had no clue on how this had to be done and also had a skeletal staff, he did do everything right as he eventually spent four years working with Operation Flood-2.

Nair then returned to AAI as number two in the cargo department in Delhi. He rose to the no.1 position in the cargo department in 1987. Among his many responsibilities here was contributing to the development and operationalisation of the integrated cargo terminals at the metro airports.

But soon enough Nair was back in the thick of action — this time as Airport Director of Thiruvananthapuram where six porters’ unions were cornering the trolleys meant to be used by passengers. The porters would fleece passengers and successive airport directors had been able to do little as the 203 porters had political backing.

Nair’s decision to take these porters head-on did not go down well with those working with him so he decided to follow a divide and rule policy and use all his contacts to curb the menace of porters. He also took the then chief minister of the State, K Karunakaran, to the airport, to show him how the porters were scaring away tourists who were keen to come to Kerala.

“The CM eventually left and as his car reached the gates he saw the porters assembled there. He gave them an earful,” Nair recalls. The porters, however, had an avenue for making easy money and didn’t give up. They went to court but their case was thrown out.

Nair also served as the airport director at Mumbai and Delhi airports which he calls a unique privilege enjoyed by no one else in IAAI/AAI (being the airport director at three airports).

Life had just about settled down for Nair when he was tasked to head the Key Infrastructure Department in the government in 1998, which was looking after the privatisation of airports in the country during the tenure of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

In support of privatisation

During his stint at the Key Infrastructure Department, Nair had the responsibility of being the bridge between AAI and the government. While a majority of AAI employees were against privatisation, Nair held the view that privatisation was the pragmatic route for transforming India’s gateway airports to meet global standards.

“Here was a unique opportunity wherein airports badly needed complete overhaul and this could be achieved and, without having to toil, AAI could garner 5 to 10 times more revenue that could be used for upgrading other airports in the country,” Nair says.

He has a point. Jayant Sinha, Minister of State for Civil Aviation, told the Lok Sabha in March this year that AAI got 31 per cent of its revenue from Delhi and Mumbai airports during the financial year 2016-17.

Nair spent a few more years with the government but eventually left in 2006 “to better his earning prospects” and fulfil his desire of doing something tangible which had a visible impact.

Nair joined the GMR Group and immediately got involved in the creation of the new greenfield airport in Hyderabad. His biggest task, however, was ensuring that terminal 3 at Delhi airport became ready in a record time of 37 months for the Commonwealth Games.

At the moment, Nair is an Executive Director of GMR Airports Ltd, besides representing GMR on national and international fora, like the National Skill Development Council on Aerospace and Defence.

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