Air India’s self-indulgent pilots have called off their strike, but the takeaway from their drama remains unchanged. This country must seriously take stock and ask, do we really need a national carrier? Or put simply, would it not be in the interest of consumers and of the government that sustains it to simply shut down the airline? The balance sheet is uninspiring even in a sector where being in the red is for long stretches of time a way of life. This is a company unable to pay for fuel or airport usage, that begs the government for a bailout, and all the while refuses to tighten operating costs in a hyper-competitive marketplace. The most compelling reason put forth for bailing out the airline is to protect jobs. Yet, Air India’s over-paid pilots were, until Wednesday, striking work in protest against the few sensible cost-cutting schemes that the management chose to take up to keep it going.

The pilots’ unreasonableness must be seen in the context of larger structural flaws and poor decision-making. A flurry of aircraft acquisitions has meant added expenditure with few lucrative routes to generate revenue. Air India’s state-insured troubles have been compounded by a merger with Indian Airlines that hasn’t quite worked. And its employee to aircraft ratio is one of the highest in the world. That Air India’s cost cutting was legitimate seems obvious and reasonable enough. After all, the 50 per cent cut in productivity-linked-incentives (PLI) is only for those earning more than Rs 2 lakh PLI per month. For those earning Rs 10,000 or less PLI per month, there is only a 25 per cent reduction.

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