Aircraft Maintenance has
come into sharp focus after the crash of Air India Boeing 787- 8 Dreamliner,
operating as Flight AI171 from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick, on June 12. A total
of 241 passengers and crew on board the Boeing Dreamliner and 29 people on the
ground lost their lives. The London-bound aircraft had crashed into a
buildingof BJ Medical College campus, moments after it took off, from the
SardarVallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad. One passenger,Vishwas
Kumar Ramesh, seated on the now famous and much sought after seat - 11 A seat, survived the disaster. He is a
40-year-old British businessman from Leicester. He was discharged, after
recovery, from Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, only to be carrying out the funeral
rites of his cousin, who also had died in the same air accident. Such isthe
irony and human misery being faced by many. Today,s Economics pays tribute to all those who lost their lives as
well as those who survived the ordeal.
Fine, this
particular company was not acquired by the Tatas. Maybe in their scheme of things,
outsourcing the maintenance ofAircrafts, rather than carrying it out in-house,
made for greater economic sense. Of course, maintenance activities, experts
say, traditionally means getting ‘your hands dirty’ in cluttered, greasy, labour
intensive activities. So many airlines prefer to outsource this bothersome,
unglamorous undertaking. Howsoever important it may be. Tatas collaboration
with Singapore Airlines for Vistara could have also played a role.
In any case, an opportunity of acquiring a Value organization was lost. Often immediate
concerns can overshadow long term perspectives in businesses, though it is not
being suggested in this particular case atall.AIESL could have lost some of its
market and patronage, we are not aware. But then many would say there are collateral
impacts of Privatization. Economists say hard money, rather than immediate value
realization is seen as the ultimate objective of privatization. ITDC, STC etc.
are a case in point; wheremany state that intrinsic value and brands got
diminished. Air India somehow is proving the point that all out privatization
of PSUs may have its own limitations. Some eminent people have even started
questioning the Air India privatization. Of course the accident could have
happened any which way and Tatascertainly cannot to be blamed for it. Many observers
feel that the Oil & Gas Sector could be next in line for total
privatization. It’s after all,the duck which laysgolden eggs. Already, the existing
Indian private players have already made a nice buck. Of late they have even
overtaken the PSUs in domestic market share. Remember they already made a
killing in exports,prompting windfall taxes for the first time in India! But
with the world in a flux, sceptics insist that a fall back arrangement has to
be in place especially when the push becomes a shove. Readers will do well to recollect
the time when the Oil Companies in India, owned by the so called Seven Sisters,
Oil Multinationals, had to be nationalized? One of the reasons was their being
neutral at a time when India was at war. Wars are suddenly becomingquite frequent
and somewhat prolonged!The oft quoted words of Indian business housesthat they
are there to do business not charity, needs to be kept in perspective. Occasionally,
there may be requirement of charity at home so that the nation is able totide
over grim times. But let us not divert
from our topic of Aviation Maintenance. Aviation veterans have a saying – Every engine has its own mind, and surely
minds should be currently at work in India!
TE conveys its heart felt condolence to all who have been impacted by AI crash.
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