Regional Round-Up
Indian flag carrier loses money on 97.5% of its daily services
December 1st 2014
India’s government told the nation’s parliament that only nine of Air India’s 370 daily departures are profitable, The Times of India has reported. Read More »
The flag carrier’s money-making international flights are Cochin-Kozhikode-Jeddah, Kozhikode-Sharjah and Kolkata-Yangon. The profitable domestic sectors are Delhi-Leh; Delhi-Kolkata; Leh-Jammu; Delhi-Srinagar; Srinagar-Leh and Delhi-Hyderabad-Vijayawada. Air India’s finances are in dire shape. Mahesh Sharma, the country’s minister of state for civil aviation, announced recently in Delhi that the airline lost 75.6 billion rupees (US$1.22 billion) in 2011-12, 54.9 billion rupees in 2012-13 and 53.9 billion rupees in 2013-14. He further disclosed that Air India’s loan balance at October 31 this year was 522.4 billion rupees ($8.44 billion), with aircraft loans accounting for 234 billion rupees and the remaining 289 billion rupees listed as working capital.
More than 50 Air India pilots have resigned this year after the airline cut allowances by 15%. The carrier is facing an acute cabin crew shortage and has launched an aggressive advertising campaign to recruit 250 flight attendants. The crew shortages are one of the reasons that 50,773 Air India passengers were affected by flight delays in October, an abnormally number given that 25,000 passengers from all Indian carriers suffer from airline delays each month across all Indian carriers.
