SkyLoot

Late evening and there’s nearly a dozen check-in counters of Indigo with hardly one or two passengers at each counter and some with none. I walk up to one vacant counter to pick up my boarding pass and the guy tells me: “Sir, this is a Priority/Express check-in counter”. I tell him that’s very nice and I just need my boarding pass quickly. He tells me again: “Sir, this is the Express counter you need one of the other counters”. I asked him what he meant and he tells me that at this “Express/Priority check-in counter” there is an additional fee of Rs.400 for checking in quickly. Uh… what? An Express counter where there’s an additional fee of Rs.400 just to pick up a boarding pass? Indigo and some other airlines have started alarming practices that are now in the “avarice” category. Book a ticket – You pay me! (That I can understand). Pick a particular seat – You pay me! Have check-in luggage – You pay me! Want Express check-in – You pay me! Want to stretch your leg – You pay me! And if you manage to escape all this we will loot you on the inflight  food.

You would have thought that with more competition and more services the customer would benefit with better prices and facilities. None of that. IAAI and the Civil Aviation Ministry have made it an absolute misery for people to fly. Opening up the skies was also intended to help the average Indian with smaller incomes fly at times. Take a look at this:

Most days, this is the scene at the lower level domestic departure lounge near the gates at Mumbai airport. The queues at the gates often extend right into the seating area for passengers and the whole area is cramped. And this is supposedly the new terminal by IAAI. It’s not just pathetic, it is pure sinister. All you have to do is look at the prices for food items. The aviation ministry (right from the time of Praful Patel) has given all the stalls and stores the license to loot; extreme loot. All the food-prices are the same as one might find at a 5-star hotel. Even the mundane “Plain Dosa” can cost you as much as Rs.150 or more at some places. The current GOI has allowed this mindless loot to continue. Most people tolerate it and move on. Nobody has the time to complain but some bus-stations at some cities are better laid out than the lousy departure area at the lower level in Mumbai and at some other airports.

As with the loot-stores at airports, airlines too have come up with creative ideas to loot you. Indigo, Spicejet charge you anywhere between 300 and 600 for some particular seats (especially windown and aisle seats). This, even after you check-in online and print your boarding-pass which saves them time, labour and paper. Indigo has classified its seats as ordinary and as “XL” where XL means you have extra leg-room for which they charge you Rs.600 extra. This kind of horrendous avarice has gone beyond control and there will be more new ways to loot you. Around the last week of December the AirIndia fare for Delhi-Dehradun was as high as Rs.9000 (one-way) in Economy class. This is for a short distance of 300 kms. All the signs the airlines and GOI are giving you say: “Don’t fly”.

Spicejet is now boasting of a “turnaround” in 2015. I have to agree that their services have improved and they have mostly been on schedule and a lot more reliable. But they forget to tell passengers when booking tickets that they must learn a bit of Bulgarian too. Yes indeed, quite a few of the aircrafts and routes of Spicejet belong to Bulgarian Airlines and are operated by them. The pilots and crew are fully Bulgarian except for one Indian who does not provide any other service but make the announcements in Hindi to meet aviation rules. Here’s what you get to read on the back of the tray-table on a Spicejet seat:

Frequent fliers would know what it’s saying but there are no messages in Hindi or any other Indian language as with other Indian aircrafts. The crew does not speak any language other than Bulgarian and broken English. Their announcments in English with their accent is not a great problem but imagine if some Indian who does not speak English has to communicate with them. They do have the sole Indian cabin-crew member who is merely a passenger except for making the standard announcments. That’s not all, Spicejet has come up with yet another Loot-idea! If you are going to travel with check-in baggage (normally allowed up to 15kgs on domestic flights) you will have to pay around Rs.200 extra and you should know that at the time of the booking itself else you would be allowed only the cabin hand-bag. Here you go:

The two fares shown above are for the same flight for January 15. If you plan on carrying check-in baggage you will Rs.212 more. Very innovative! And I don’t think you have seen the end of these loot-innovations and chances are 2016 will see even more ideas to pinch your pocket with lesser services. And there is, of course, Jet Airways that offer you Privilege membership even if you don’t want it. When you have accumulated enough miles Jet will tell you that you’re now eligible to redeem those mileage points. Try redeeming and you will see how painful it is. Jet Privilege will not allow you to redeem your mileage points on key flights. At best, you might be able to redeem your privilege points on a very early morning flight or a very late-night red-eye flight.

While Suresh Prabhu & Co. are working hard in GOI to make the railways a better experience for travellers (and doing a good job of it too) the airline and aviation industry is going to make life more miserable for travellers and IAAI will contribute to it too. The Aviation Ministry slumbers and fails to protect customers and travellers. That’s the warning sign for 2016 if things don’t change dramatically. But there’s a way to beat most of these things.

As a frequent traveller I always pick the last row in the aircraft. Nobody wants the last row. The airline will be considerate enough to tell you that it’s a non-reclining seat when you pick it. They are very concerned about your back, you see! Nobody ever wants the last row and unless a flight is 100% full I usually have all 3 seats to myself. The innovative SkyLoot will continue. Passengers will have to find innovative ways to beat it.

Happy New Year! 

Taking A Dive

True story: Sometime in 1999-2000 I took an Indian Airlines flight from Delhi to Lucknow for a day-trip. My return flight was around 5.30pm and passengers were boarded with a minor delay. When the aircraft was ready to leave the engine wouldn’t start. It was like a car that makes a whirring sound on ignition but wouldn’t start. We were offloaded and made to wait on the tarmac as two engineers came to the aircraft. They opened the cover of the left engine and did some minor checks and repairs. After a few minutes we were boarded again but the plane had the same problem and wouldn’t start. We were offloaded again and back came the engineers. They estimated it would take longer for the repairs so we were sent back to the terminal. We were served snacks while we waited and departure was announced again at around 9pm. We boarded the aircraft again but this time there was a new problem. You see, about a dozen passengers were quite worried about the engines so they refused to let the aircraft fly unless the engineers accompanied the flight. The arguments with the IA staff and crew lasted some 15 minutes till this group finally relented.

The dozen passengers had finally relented because an elderly passenger intervened and asked them if they expected the engineers to go out and make repairs if the engines conked out mid-air at some 30000 feet. There are some good, bad and hilarious moments I’ve had in flights with IA and AI. We did reach Delhi safely without another engine failure. Since then IA has had Alliance Air, then changed the name to just “Indian” and finally all the branches are under one brand ‘Air India’ (AI). Some years prior AI was one of the best in international flights and as Indian my preferred choice but most travellers were aware the airline was going down the drain. This is what brings me to a small review of the book “The descent of Air India” by its former executive director Jitender Bhargava (JB).    

I have often stated that Jawaharlal Nehru did not possess the foresight and vision for large country like ours. When he nationalised AI in 1953 he assured JRD Tata there would be no interference from the govt and he was true to his word. What he did not foresee is that his successors and other ministers would not stand by his word. Thus, one of India’s finest brands and world-renowned airline has been forced to take a dive. This is the story that JB tells us. The book may not exactly be exciting to read but is more like a documentary and mostly written as JB’s journey in his nearly 3-decade career with the airline. But it is a must read for anyone who wishes to acquire expertise on how to destroy a great business and a great brand.

There’s the usual union problems; with Commie political parties backing them. There are stories of pilferage of premium Whisky and stuff by the pursers and cabin crew. Excessive compensation demands, allowances and appointment of people without expertise and so on. There’s even a hilarious idea of “Kerala massage” for passengers to improve their inflight experience. There’s a case where seats were chosen not by rational purchase procedures but only by celebrities trying those out at the AI office (like Shobha De). And yes, they had a variety of expertise on the board at times, including Jaya Bachchan of Bollywood. AI had also informally shifted its HQ from Mumbai to Delhi years ago but formalised it in February 2013. This is so that the chairmen could be close to the Civil Aviation ministry bosses and other political powers. I know, you must be wondering why all of these should be coming to you from a book when AI has been going downhill for many years. Well, I always say: The media is the first line of defence for the corrupt. This may not entirely relate to corruption but since media too was scavenging on a dying airline many stories may not have come out in the open.    

Since the book covers a lot of areas of failures in AI I will stick to mostly media related issues. Let’s, therefore, digress a bit. In November 2012 I posted the article “HT Summit: How to Sell Leadership & Make Money” which showed how unrelated PSUs, some of which were monopolies and never big advertisers, were doling out money for sponsoring the HT Summit for inexplicable reasons. A majority of the sponsors were PSUs and YOUR money was being used to fund these “private parties”. I am not implying a direct connection with AI but part of the airline’s story is somewhat similar. So let’s read some edited excerpts (in blue, emphasis mine) from the book. For a start, here’s a serious way to solve your company’s problems (V. Thulasidas is a former CMD 2003-08):

As the airline’s performance careened to new lows year after year, none could stay immune to the impending catastrophe. Even Mr Thulasidas was perturbed. Instead of tacking the problems at hand with research and rationale, however, he decided to invoke the power of ‘vaastu’. An expert… from Hyderabad was appointed to guide the chairman on which angle to place his desk, where to conduct his meetings with colleagues and which doors to the conference room to keep shut or open. The changes suggested by the experts were duly carried out at substantial expense to the airline… Another example of how Mr Thulasidas prioritised his personal preferences was his insistence on being escorted to and back from work every day of his tenure. An AI employee would pick him up from his house every morning and drop him back at his house every evening. And in the mornings, as Mr Thulasidas’s car approached the AI building, the aide would call a peon at the office and ask him to hold the elevator door open.

Okay, that’s hilarious but not all CMDs are described like that. JB goes on to describe how intolerant of dissent the leaders at AI had become between 2004 and 2008. As with other PSUs given below are cases where largesse was being doled out to media houses for no reason or rhyme. JB reads it as “barter” for publicity but even he judges it wrongly.

For example, when a reputed media house was hosting its annual summit, _____ _____ extended AI’s patronage to the event without consulting the chairman. He committed the airline to 30 lakh worth of tickets by way of a barter deal in lieu of publicity for AI. When the organisers sought tickets as part of the deal, we discovered that there was no written approval or sanction for the barter arrangement. No one had any knowledge of the verbal agreement either, but it had to be honoured since the minister had already given his word.

It was the same story when it came to organising familiarisation trips for the media at the time of a new flight launch or some such affair. The minister’s office would send a list of journalists to be invited… some of these ‘journalists’ never wrote a line after their return. But our views were not taken into consideration, not even when it could have both saved the airline a substantial amount of money and ensured better publicity. In 2007, when India won the T20 cricket championship, AI was forced to release full-page advertisement in the newspapers on the specious plea that we should celebrate as almost half the victorious team was on the rolls of AI. The advertisements cost the airline 3.50 crores – this at a time when the airline was financially bleeding.

Professional cricketers with lucrative contracts with BCCI were also on AI rolls? Nice! Cricket is as much a political tool for many politicians as are the glamorous PSUs like AI. Now, what JB refers to as “publicity” is not publicity at all. Publicity could be in the form of some favourable article (even notified as sponsored) or some write-ups that talk about the airlines services or major achievements etc. JB doesn’t indicate any such return for the expense. He calls it barter purely because no cash was paid; it was just plain “sponsorship” or an “advertising dole” with nothing measureable gained in return.

Since advertising budgets had always been low, the airline has chosen its media basket with caution. But at the behest of a few people in power, AI, AAI and IA were forced to release every campaign, irrespective of whether it was relevant to the newspaper’s readers or not, in a publication owned by a powerful media magnate. Even by the most conservative estimate, advertisements worth over 10 Crore were issued to the said media house.

And the above is backed by a note dated May 3, 2005 from the Ministry of Civil Aviation complaining about advertisements going to some newspapers were not going to ____ which is a leading newspaper for Western India. So everyone had a hand in the till. Many media palms were greased. It didn’t matter to many that all this was killing the golden goose. There are, of course, other issues of purchase of fleets beyond needs and burdening the airline. Giving off profitable routes to others and even the CAG pointing out entertainment equipment purchased above normal market prices. Much of this is being talked in the media only after this book was released in October 2013 although there have been stray articles here and there.  Here’s a video from NewsX as recently as February 1 talking about free tickets in 2006 (AI is unwilling to disclose the "commercial" beneficiaries) and the courts taking notice (2.0 mins):

Surprisingly, the publisher (Bloomsbury) has withdrawn the book from the market because Praful Patel filed a defamation case against them and the author for certain comments about him or certain decisions attributed to him and a certain scam. We don’t know because the case was settled out-of-court and the book withdrawn. But even when the book was in circulation and being sold no media house seriously discussed it. The reason is obvious; it may have implicated some of them as beneficiaries of govt largesse through AI. I have found nothing that can be considered defamatory because many adverse statements against Patel are either backed by documentary evidence or by references to deals that are in the public domain. JB has stated in the press that he will now publish the book himself or have an eBook made available soon. That should be good news for those who wish to read the book. Here’s another piece from the book that explains the culture of management at AI:

Over the years, the politicians have become more demanding. They interact directly with the chairmen, in whose appointment they are likely to have played a role. During 1993-94, when Ghulam Nabi Azad was the minister of civil aviation, Russy Mody, as chairman of AI, summed up the environment well when he publicly stated, “I want to be azad, and he wants me to be his Ghulam”.

In sporting terms “taking a dive” simply means deliberately losing a match or a bout to a competitor with or without any consideration. In Cricket we are familiar with the term “match-fixing”.  AI has been forced to take a dive for many years. It may be too late to save the airline unless govt is removed from the management. It remains to be seen whether our media will take the trouble of looking into other PSUs who generously bail them out. I’m not betting on it. 

The Rating Game

Another weekend and we have another Friday blogbuster from RajdeepSardesai. This time it’s about the plight of Irom Sharmila and her 11-year old fast against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). This time, his lament is why Anna Hazare got all the attention and Sharmila didn’t. I usually help Rajdeep rehash his articles, because he's a favourite of mine, but this time I will let it pass. Though there are many holes in his latest article I am for anything that can help Sharmila end her fast and fight for her cause in a different manner. Right now, it’s the battle of TRPs that the media is engaged in with advertisers that is not on front pages or on our screens.

Okay, this was a headline on a news channel today morning (either Headlines Today or CNN-IBN) ‘Kareena Kapoor with all three Khans in a row’. Would any bright intellectual ever explain to me what exactly that is supposed to mean? Why in heavens are news channels more and more like ZoomTV or ImagineTV? It appears the only thing that drives news channels is a terror strike, an Anna type movement or fierce political battles. Their main programming is made up of cricket, Bollywood, cheap thrills, cars and gadgets, Hindu-bashing and if after all that, they find some time, there is news. And they'd even like to think they are the ones mostly making it. On most channels there are no serious documentaries or any serious investigations. The now extinct ‘News of the world’ and that dead dodo ‘Illustrated Weekly’ would be proud of our news channels any day. Kushwant Singh would applaud what our news channels have become. Mindless banter by the fair and lovely manly crowd of Kanwal, Rajdeep, Arnab and the extinct Prannoy! Oh, that includes the ladies too! This is where Rajdeep Sardesai came in lately. TRPs!

Television Audience Measurement (TAM) releases TRPs every week. Now, Rajdeep leads the chorus that wants them to release the ratings monthly and not weekly while advertisers want it weekly, as it currently is. Wait, advertisers even ask: why not every day? The ratings for TV channels are given in time bands from morning till prime time. In case you haven’t looked at the ratings, I recommend you just take a casual look. Mind you, the TAM ratings aren’t released publicly but only to members, who in turn use it to claim superiority in one segment or the other. You might get to see those TRPs as they get slightly dated and not before. As ordinary viewers you and I are not normally concerned about these ratings but for TV channels and advertisers these are their Bibles and Korans. They swear, live and die by it, after they have paid for it.

The recent Anna Hazare movement had TimesNow taking up the cause against govt so strongly that it had other channels playing catch-up. TimesNow took pole position like Demi Moore in Striptease, sort of! Now, Rajdeep and others contend that the weekly ratings negatively affect content on TV. Oh yeah? So if your news content is bad you throw up a Kareena Kapoor and a Khan because the ratings are bad? Yes, indeed! That is pretty much the strategy of all news channels. Saas Bahu, Bhoot Pret, Cuckoo on the couch, Flashback Bollywood, Total Recall – all these are supposed to be worthy of news channels?

“Have you noticed how news channels are getting more and more breathless in their coverage of the news? How anchors tend to shout rather than speak? How every bit of news, no matter how mundane, is deemed worthy of a Breaking News headline? And how sensation is increasingly replacing the sort of thing that used to be regarded as news?” That’s not me. That is one time Radiagate hero Vir Sanghvi writing on his website Counterpoint. I am tempted to ask Vir Sanghvi what he did when he used to be on TV. At best I could call his shows gentle massaging while you snoozed. And I am being kind really. But let it be!

Let’s hear some more from Vir Sanghvi: Currently, the news channels and the advertising industry are locked in a fierce battle over ratings. The news channels say that the current system in which ratings are declared every week is bad. It should be replaced by a system where such ratings are announced only once a month. Nonsense, say advertisers. We are in the business of spending the money our clients give us wisely. We need information that is accurate and up-to-date. In an ideal world, we would like ratings that are instantaneous. At the very least we would prefer the current system of weekly ratings that allows us to judge how well a show is doing. Why should we have to wait a month to find this out?

Let me not bore you with Vir Sanghvi. The larger principle is pretty clear. In the recent discussions about a CAG report damning Air India, every channel had conducted an inquisition on Praful Patel with severe questioning. Not one, I repeat not one channel dared mention the other report on the Reliance scam relating to the KG Basin scam. Why would they? Just as ordinary citizens that they accuse of politician-bashing,  the news channels derive the same TRPs by politician-bashing. After all why would they bite the hand that feeds them? Right? And then, would an interview or screwing some lame executive from Reliance get them the same TRP? In both cases, Praful Patel and Reliance, the end result would have been denial, denial, denial! Given that end result in mind who would the channels pimp with? That’s simply a business decision and not a ‘news’ decision’! That’s the rating game.

Reliance, of course, is a stake holder in some of the news channels. Reliance is also a major advertiser on all the channels in India. So the crimes of Reliance can pass, but Praful Patel, like other politicians, is fair game for our news channels. Anna Hazare knew that pretty well. So, when Rajdeep Sardesai wonders why Irom Sharmila doesn’t get the same media attention he makes the same mistake most journalistic cub idiots make. Corruption is more identifiable with politicians than with the army. That is why the rating game prevents news channels from the issues of Irom Sharmila. The news channels are as corrupt as the political class. Try and figure this – IndiaTV for all the ridicule that is heaped on it for its ‘Bhooth preth, Karma, Punar Jamn’ stories could still be business-wise the most profitable one. If your game is getting eyeballs, real news and truth is not about catching the criminals by their balls. I doubt anyone would pay to see Rajdeep Sardesai in the nude on TV, but hey, make no mistake, if Poonam Pandey makes that announcement - that would break a lot of eyeballs wouldn't it?

So it’s neither about truth nor about news, it is just about the rating game. Our news channels just want to ensure that they remain sexy and attractive for their paymasters. Where do we, the viewers, come in? Go figure!

Aviation: The Next Scam?

The fake pilot license scam is in the news for some days. News reports suggest that this was possible owing to some crooks in the DGCA itself. That doesn’t surprise anyone. There seems hardly any government department that isn’t enjoying its free run on corruption. That is just about breaking. Sometime in November 2010 neither the media nor the then Aviation Minister, Praful Patel, paid much attention but some passenger groups protested the extra-ordinarily high fares being charged by airlines. Fares between metros went up as high as Rs.20000 to Rs.30000. Praful Patel acted only after flyer groups forced him to.

Now this smoothing talking minister is on record calling Nira Radia an ‘economic terrorist’. This was probably in response to her statements about him in the leaked tapes. And this is what she had said: “But he [Patel] has destroyed the sector.....He’s worked as a minister for Naresh Goyal [Jet Airways] and now Vijay Mallya [Kingfisher]. He cannot brush off this charge”. (From Outlook)

Between Nira Radia and Praful Patel you can decide who you want to trust. That Air India has been bleeding and making severe losses is no big secret. One would have thought the Civil Aviation minister would be very concerned and involved in reversing the loss-making trend of Air India. However, since Vayalar Ravi took over the aviation ministry some news reports make alarming reading indeed.

Here are excerpts from an Outlook magazine (March 28) report which make sorry reading:

Killing the Maharaja gently! (From Hindustan Times)

“As many as 32 routes, many of them believed to be profitable, have been abandoned by the carrier (Air-India) since 2004. (This includes those run by Indian Airlines and Air India, before they were merged in 2007)Union aviation minister Vayalar Ravi confesses his ignorance of why his predecessor, Praful Patel, would have cancelled profitable routes.....” The report also mentions Air India withdrawing from the busy Bangkok and Singapore routes.

Some union members of Air India have also complained of profitable time slots being shifted while private airlines had better and more profitable time slots. So your guess is as good as mine on who eventually benefitted from the profitable routes vacated by Air India. 

In  Good Times

 It seems the opening up of the economy and allowing private enterprise to take up major domains of previously government held businesses is now the primary source of revenue for political coffers. It is just as well that Praful Patel is out of the aviation ministry. 

Whether she is an economic terrorist or not, Nira Radia does have information and insight that enable her to make the statement she made about Praful Patel. The aviation scams may be just starting to take off!