Airline News
361 of Air India’s 370 daily departures unprofitable
December 2nd 2014
India’s government told parliament that only nine of national carrier Air India’s 370 daily departures are profitable, The Times of India has reported. Read More »
The carrier’s money-making international flights are between Cochin-Kozhikode-Jeddah; Kozhikode-Sharjah and Kolkata-Yangon. The profitable domestic sectors are between Delhi-Leh; Delhi-Kolkata; Leh-Jammu; Delhi-Srinagar; Srinagar-Leh and Delhi-Hyderabad-Vijayawada.
Needless to say, Air India’s finances are in dire shape. Mahesh Sharma, the country’s minister of state for civil aviation, recently in Delhi said the airline lost 75.6 billion rupees ($1.22 billion) in 2011-12; 54.9 billion in 2012-13 and 53.9 billion in 2013-14. He further disclosed that Air India’s loan balance on October 31, 2014 was 522.4 billion rupees ($8.44 billion), with 234 billion for aircraft loans and the remaining 289 billion for working capital.
More than 50 pilots have resigned from Air India this year after it cut allowances by 15% to trim its wage bill. The carrier is also facing an acute shortage of cabin crew and has started an aggressive advertising campaign to recruit 250 of them as soon as possible. The shortage of both cabin and cockpit crew are considered part of the reason that 50,773 of Air India’s passengers were affected by flight delays in October, an abnormal number given the average 25,000 passengers affected by delays every month across all Indian carriers.
