Just the fact that the Air India disinvestment has been pushed through a marquee group like the Tatas is cause for celebration. It’s a very crowded market, there is a lot of competition. What are the challenges you see going forward?
I think this is great news for Indian aviation. Air India under the Tatas is going to be a very strategic market offering, very similar to what we have seen at Lufthansa Group. The main airline Lufthansa owns sub airlines like Austrian, Swiss Air, Sun Express and joint ventures with China Airlines and so on. This is going to be possibly the most potent revival of an airline which was the trend setter on the benchmark for our region back in the 50s and 60s.
Honestly, I do not see any major challenge except for Covid. But the world governments and organisations and WHO are working hard to keep it under control with new and more potent vaccines. The positive upswing for Air India is that we will see Air India first take back whatever it has lost over the last 40 to 50 years — the routes in Africa, taking full advantage of bilateral, taking full advantage of flights and routes over Southeast Asia, Australia, the Pacific and Latin America. Air India that the world appreciated will be back.
Also, Tatas have fairly deep pockets. They have seen worse business turnarounds with Tisco and turned Telco into a hybrid advanced automotive manufacturer today that owns Jaguar Land Rover. So I am not really worried about Air India getting adequate support. Air India is going to be over backed, over supported. It is going to be the blue eyed boy of Tatas and India is going to be up to max capacity.
It is going to be very good for India, Foreign exchange earnings will be up because Air India predominantly is an international airline, it is not a domestic airline. So we are going to see improved foreign exchange earnings.
The significance and the symbolism of this also matters, does not it? Some of the queries always when talking about Air India’s disinvestment was who would it go to and what happens to the brand name? Since the buyer is the Tata Group, it puts all of those questions to ease, doesn’t it?
Yes. The Air India brand will always be and continue to reside with India. I do not think anyone outside India is going to be really keen on taking it because it has always been a unique GI that has been synonymous with hospitality and everything that came from India back in the good old days and that is going to be revived.
As for the five to 10-year outlook, I really do not see that as an issue because Air India as a group has always been non-confrontational when it came to HR and people and manpower. I think a lot of the employees and unions would have a sense of renewed passion because Air India was running at just about 50% capacity and now it is going to be running at 100% production. So we will see a complete attitudinal change and a total shift in the way employees and unions themselves look at Air India. That itself is positive.
There is a difference between a vyapari (trader) and a udhyogpati (industrialist). An industrialist looks at a return of at least 25 to 30 years and stays invested. So there cannot be a better combination than this and from a long-term perspective this is going to be very productive for India.
