Just claiming possession of a “sufficient” number of flight crew, maintenance engineers, ground staff and a handful of management positions alone does not suffice to maintain a healthy airline. A true airline is a business entity with a purely commercial mission i.e. making profits. Thrusting any other additional duties on it, whether it is national duty, disaster relief or VVIP carriage will make it less competitive vis-à-vis other true airlines. The sorry state of the next-door Air India should clearly illustrate the point, which despite its size has been steadily bleeding itself dry. For a country like India, that prides itself as being a fountainhead of top-of-the-line management graduates, finding someone to manage a mere airline shouldn’t have been a problem.
With only one wide-body aircraft, it may well be impossible to maintain schedules (and consequently utilize landing slots), thus forcing NAC to pay compensation to the passengers for the delays as per recent EU regulations.
Similarly, another major Indian private airline like Jet Airways had to hire the services of Wolfgang Prock-Schauer in its expansion phase (since succeeded by Nikos Kardassis) to fill-up the position of Chief Executive Officer and other non-natives for key decision-making positions for respectable remuneration. Why did it not pick up a top–of-the-line graduate or faculty from its highly-acclaimed Indian Institute of Managements or even an ex-executive of any of India’s successful public sector undertakings? Does that mean that NAC has to take some cues from them?
An airline cannot just be professionally managed by anyone, as operating a single B-777 or Airbus-330 flight on a trans-Atlantic route at half its occupancy makes no business sense. No wonder, other private international ventures by Nepali pseudo-entrepreneurs fell flat sooner rather than later in the wake of similar losses. Hopefully, the NAC’s management will realize that flying to Europe now is different than a decade ago. With only one wide-body aircraft, it may well be impossible to maintain schedules (and consequently utilize landing slots), thus forcing them to pay compensation to the passengers for the delays as per recent EU regulations.
The NAC with its origins as a national flag carrier today doesn’t bear much resemblance to an airline. It is common knowledge that NAC’s monopoly over ground handling at Tribhuvan International Airport is all that is sustaining its cash flow. In the past, whether its wily management succeeded in perpetuating the fallacious notion that NAC will serve during times of national crises or that the political leadership itself deliberately wanted to keep the NAC merely afloat so as to keep on milking it can be debated. On a lighter note, it is an established fact that the airline did steadily contribute to creating national crises in the past while selling or leasing aircraft or while appointing General Sales Agents. The weary B-757s today might be a lucrative source of regular income to its bosses entrusted with its maintenance but for a conscious fare-paying passenger, these old aircraft will be the vehicles of last resort despite the adverts of low fares.
The concept of flag carrier or national carrier originated in the mid-1950s with the advent of large-scale commercial air transportation made possible by jet aircraft like the venerable Boeing-707. Since the industry was capital intensive, and with commercial air transportation being heavily regulated by inter-state air service agreements that granted access rights to locally-registered airlines, governments were often compelled to operate an airline to avoid being put at a disadvantage by possible foreign competition. Sometimes, the reasons also had to do with nationalism and tourism promotion. With deregulation of the airline industry in the early 1980s, most state-owned airlines were either privatized to bring efficiency or government ownership was reduced to a minority share. Governments then began designating “flag carriers” to avail traffic rights. Air Canada is an example. It was privatized in 1988 and since then continues to enjoy the status of a designated flag carrier.
Thus, the Nepal government’s policy of continuing to prop up a fully (or partly) state-owned NAC with a less-than-professional management is meaningless, more so when it has the option of designating a “flag carrier.” No one in his right senses will argue against Nepal capitalizing on the available seating capacity, however, the continuing charade as evident in the duels between the MD and the chairman of NAC does indeed give a glimpse of how the government intends to operate our flag carrier. While one position-holder is a cadre as well as former head of Nepal Telecom (NT), an organization not quite known for quality (the quality of NT services, specifically mobile, perhaps, attests to the degree of professionalism existing within NT), with arguably debatable credentials necessary for ably running an airline, the other position-holder is a venerable pilot steeped more in the technical details of flying an aircraft and involved in many past avoidable controversies. Both, therefore, appear to be ill-equipped to steer an airline that continues to be in a moribund state waiting for its dose of fix—additional aircraft or not. And who can guarantee that the MD will remain in the chair long enough to accept responsibility for failures arising thereof?
pilots_nepal@yahoo.com
Related story
Aviation mafia eyeing NAC’s ground handling income
