Air India’s decision to serve hot meals, albeit only vegetarian, on flights of less than 90 minutes is one of the few wise decisions its management has stumbled upon. Under the open skies policy, the national carrier is competing with budget airlines that offer cheap fares. One way to fare well in this competitive environment would be to remain a full service airline, giving the passenger some comfort on a flying day with a meal on board rather than a cold snack even on short journeys. Before a controversy could be whipped up about the lack of choice for meat eaters, the airline also clarified its decision as not discriminatory so much as practical.
For an airline that enjoyed a virtual monopoly in its days as Indian Airlines, a market share of just 16.2 per cent in November 2015 is the surest index of a sharp decline to plebeian times of the symbolic Air India Maharaja, who once was lord of Indian skies. In a slew of egregious or deliberate decisions, which probably came from the very top in the aviation ministries of yore, the carrier may have been made to surrender ground to private airlines that began to sprout in the 1990s. In these days of low fuel prices and higher yields per seat, AI has reduced its operating losses from about Rs 5,138 crore in 2011-12 to Rs 2,170 crore in 2014-15 while the net loss has been kept down to Rs 5,547 crore from Rs 7,559 crore. If the airline can attract more custom by serving hot meals and enhance its financial performance, it needs support, not criticism.
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