New Delhi: Despite burgeoning losses in 2013-14, Air India (AI)
continues to maintain international offices, with a fifth of these at
destinations where it has no direct operations.
Examples are at Washington, Toronto, Los Angeles, Cairo, Teheran, Vienna, Amsterdam and Chittagong. The government-owned airline says these have been set up to cater to the travel needs of Indian-origin people at these bases.
“What is the need of stationing employees in places where AI does not even have direct operations? Ticketing and marketing can be realised more cost-effectively online. The website can be spruced for these,” said a source, who did not wish to be identified.
Another executive said despite having employees and offices at these nine locations, the airline has also appointed local general sales representatives at six of these.
AI has around 170 employees across offices in 46 international destinations. The practice of running operations at offline stations continues at a time when losses widened to Rs 5,400 crore against the target of Rs 3,989 crore in the financial year ended March 31, primarily on account of high operational cost. The carrier cut net loss to Rs 5,100 crore at the end of 2012-13, from Rs 7,100 crore in 2011-12.
Read news in full 01/07/14 Sharmistha Mukerjee/Business Standard
Examples are at Washington, Toronto, Los Angeles, Cairo, Teheran, Vienna, Amsterdam and Chittagong. The government-owned airline says these have been set up to cater to the travel needs of Indian-origin people at these bases.
“What is the need of stationing employees in places where AI does not even have direct operations? Ticketing and marketing can be realised more cost-effectively online. The website can be spruced for these,” said a source, who did not wish to be identified.
Another executive said despite having employees and offices at these nine locations, the airline has also appointed local general sales representatives at six of these.
AI has around 170 employees across offices in 46 international destinations. The practice of running operations at offline stations continues at a time when losses widened to Rs 5,400 crore against the target of Rs 3,989 crore in the financial year ended March 31, primarily on account of high operational cost. The carrier cut net loss to Rs 5,100 crore at the end of 2012-13, from Rs 7,100 crore in 2011-12.
Read news in full 01/07/14 Sharmistha Mukerjee/Business Standard
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