The reason for Government entering a business mainly has to do with either disinterest and lack of investing capacity of the private sector, or to serve a social cause to make available essential commodities/services to the poor. And the Government makes the investment using tax payer's money.
By that account, Indian Government has no business continuing to run Air India. The Airline is a disaster, a monument to mismanagement, hated by all Indians, whome it is supposed to serve, for poor service and discriminatory treatment, and a drain on exchequer. Today, the Private Sector is more than willing to invest in the ever growing air traffic sector, and the sector anyway do not come under the category of essential commodities/services that benefit the poor. Only the upper middle class, rich, business people, governmnet servants, politicians and airline staff and family use the flights, and of course the tourists and NRIs.
Talking of Airline Staff, one fails to understand why the Airline allows this nonsense,
According to Air India, an employee’s family, entitled to travel free with him/her, includes: spouse, children, step-children, parents, brothers, sisters, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law and even grandchildren up to 12 years. Even those who have retired are entitled to passages.This has led to a situation where former Air India employees, currently employed with private airlines, avail passages on Air India!!!!
This benefit to employees who are paid one of the highest emoluments in the Country!!. This is the same Government that baulks at releasing the overflowing food grains to the needy poor, despite an instruction from the Supreme Court to do so. The privileges are not the only reason why the Airline is in trouble. Ministerial interference, poor planning of routes to favour private airlines, sheer incompetent management, horrible attitude of the employees and absolute lack of customer care are some of the others. The Airline is in red by about Rs 18,000 crores and at the rate they are losing money, all the money recovered from the 2G scam may be required to bail them out. Even then, the Airline may not turn the corner.
