Indian Airlines HR Problems

‘FIGHTER'PILOTS? contd...

In 1998, IA tried to persuade employees to cut down on PLI and overtime to help the airline weather a difficult period; however there efforts failed.

Though IA incurred losses during 1995-96 and 1996-97 and made only marginal profits during 1997-98 and 1998-99, heavy payments were made on account of PLI. A net loss of Rs 641.8 mn was registered during the period 1995-99. PLI payments alone amounted to Rs 6.66 bn, during the same period. According to unofficial reports, arrears to be paid to employees on account of PLI touched nearly Rs 7 bn by 1999.

Over the years, the number of employees at IA increased steadily. IA had the maximum number of employees per aircraft. (Refer Table III). It was reported that the airline's monthly wage bill was as high as of Rs 680 mn, which doubled in the next three years. There were 150 employees earning above Rs 0.3 mn per annum in 1994-95 and the number increased to 2,109 by 1997-98. The Brar committee attributed this abnormal increase in staff costs to inefficient manpower planning, unproductive deployment of manpower and unwarranted increase in salaries and wages of the employees.

TABLE III
A COMPARISON OF VARIOUS AIRLINES

Name of Airlines	Number of aircraft in fleet	No. of employees	ATKm^[3] (in Million)	ATKm per Employee	Employees per aircraft
Singapore Airlines	84	13,549	14418.324	1064161	161
Thai Airways International	76	24,186	6546.627	270678	318
Indian Airlines	51	21,990	2113.671	398204	431
Gulf Air	30	5,308	1416.235	245831	177
Kuwait Airways	22	5,761	345.599	92853	261
Jet Airways	19	3,722	1094.132	49756	196

Source: IATA-World Air Transport Statistics

Analysts criticized the way posts were created in IA. In 1999, Six new posts of directors were created of which three were created by dividing functions of existing directors. Thus, in place of 6 directors in departments'prior April 1998, there were 9 directors by 1999 overseeing the same functions. There were 30 full time directors, who in turn had their retinue of private secretaries, drivers and orderlies. The posts in non-executive cadres were to be created after the assessment by the Manpower Assessment committee. But analysts pointed that in the case of cabin crew, 40 posts were introduced in the Southern Region on an ad-hoc basis, pending the assessment of their requirement by the Staff Assessment Committee.

Another problem was that no basic educational qualifications prescribed for senior executive posts. Even a matriculate could become a manager, by acquiring the necessary job-related qualifications & experience. Illiterate IA employees drew salaries that were on par with senior civil servants. After superannuation, several employees were re-employed by the airline in an advisory capacity. According to reports, IA employed 132 retired employees as consultants during 1995-96 on contract basis. With each strike/go-slow and subsequent wage negotiations, IA's financial woes kept increasing. Though at times the airline did put its foot down, by and large, it always acceded to the demands for wage hikes and other perquisites.

TROUBLED SKIES

^[3] ATKm, i.e. Available Tonne Kilometers (ATKm) is used to measure the productivity of an airline. It denotes the total number of tonne kilometers produced by an airline during a particular period.