Air India's Performance has Improved: Ajit Singh

Bangalore: Air India's performance standards have improved and promotions to its employees, which had been stopped recently, will be started from January 2013, civil aviation minister Ajit Singh told Lok Sabha. He said during Question Hour, that though Air India was still suffering losses, its performance has improved and it has returned some of the loans taken from banks.

"An oversight committee looks at performance standards of Air India every six months. So far, Air India has improved its erformance standards," he said. The minister stated that most recommendations of the Justice Dharmadhikari Committee on integration of erstwhile Air India and Indian Airlines employees have been implemented.

"Only promotions were stopped... We will start with the promotions from next month," Singh said, adding a promotion committee has already been constituted. In reply to a question, the minister said Air India is not making profits on most routes and on some it is not even meeting the fuel cost.

"As per provisional Route Economics for April-June, 2012, out of 184 services, only 16 services met the total costs, 99 services did not meet cash-costs and 69 services met cash-costs but not the total costs," Singh said. He informed the House that due to improvement in performance, Air India's marketshare has grown to 20.8 percent.

He rued that MPs ask for commercial flights of Air India on routes which are commercially not viable.Singh refused to set a time-limit for turning around the airline, saying it is a "continuous process".