Air India’s focus on fill more, fly more has helped improve efficiency: Lohani -Governance Now

Air India’s focus on fill more, fly more has helped improve efficiency: Lohani

He said oil prices going down and introduction of more flights have helped the company to make an operating profit

GN Bureau | September 12, 2016

#Air India #pro-employee #Ashwani Lohani #more flights

Ashwani Lohani, chairman and managing director of Air India Ltd, believes in a hands-on approach at work as he tries to turn around the money-losing national carrier.

In an interview to Mint, Lohani said a pro-employee policy and a simple focus on fill more and fly more has helped improve operational efficiency and he intends to do more of the same.

He said that it’s a culmination of a lot of things that the company is doing like - improve staff morale, improve services, become more efficient, launch more commercial packages, fly more and make it more attractive (for passengers), in order to restore the lost glory of Air India.

He said that though the actual number of profit will be reflected only after the accounts are audited on September 15. Fundamentally, it’s an operating profit. He said oil prices going down and introduction of more flights have helped the company.

Lohani also said that the company is trying to get a lot of private business. “We have started doing work for Jet (Airways India Ltd), (and are) in touch with SpiceJet (Ltd) and other domestic airlines for doing their maintenance work.”

On his expectations of turning profit, Lohani said, “I can’t say anything about that right now. We have got huge debt on our books and debt servicing itself is one of the major challenges. The cost of servicing the debt itself is Rs4,000 crore every year. What we are looking at is to earn enough to service it. It’s a burden of the past.”

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