Air India's mountain of debt root of all problems: Ashwani Lohani on FB

In 2014, barely two months after the Narendra Modi government took charge, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) called a meeting to discuss the possibility of Air India advancing its revival by two years and subsequently going in for a stake sale. Three years later, despite some improvements, the state-owned carrier continues to struggle financially and is unlikely to achieve its target of making a net profit in FY19.

Despite lower fuel prices and higher passenger numbers, accumulated debt stood at Rs 46,000 crore and in April the airline took loans to pay salaries to its 16,000 employees.

Through a Facebook post, chairman and managing director Ashwani Lohani on Sunday admitted that the debt acquired by Air India is at the root of all problems for the company.

Lohani said Air India went down due to the ill fated decision of the merger of two organisations that were not destined to be, couple with many other wrong decisions, of the earlier regime.

This is not the first time, Lohani pointed this out. Last year, in an interview to Economic Times, Lohani said the biggest reason for the downfall of this airline was the merger between erstwhile Air India and Indian Airlines, which was done despite the fact that both carriers are totally opposite of each other. There were many differences between the two companies in terms of work culture, areas of operation, compensation, working conditions, entitlements etc. The merger resulted in massive discontent and frustration amongst the staff.

Air India