FROM BUSINESS WORLD OF 26 MARCH 2007
Good business for the nation
It is ironic that as competition in the airline industry
has intensified in the past four years, passengers have got more fed up.
Competition is supposed to lower prices and raise quality. Fares have declined.
But if we exclude Kingfisher Airlines with their cuddly, all-embracing seats,
flying is less comfortable today than some years ago. The nadir was reached
when Deccan Airlines bumped off booked passengers and, adding insult to injury,
refused to refund their fares to them. But even Jet Airways, which brought
international service standards to India and for long gave other airlines a
model to match, are looking somewhat jaded today.
Part of the reason is that their
staff are pinched so often by newer airlines that they find it difficult to
retain experienced staff despite all their investment in training. The
proliferation of airlines has caused a huge shortage of personnel, and a new
airline finds it enormously easier and quicker to lure away staff from existing
airlines than to train its own. This is not true for new airlines only; as
worker turnover increases, returns on investment in training decline; it
becomes ever less profitable for any airline to train its own staff.
The answer to the dilemma would
seem to lie in training institutions that are not attached to airlines. And it
has begun to happen; by now, there are a large number of institutions that
train airhostesses. But a readymade airhostess would not give an airline a
competitive edge; and a number of airlines complain that the quality of
mass-produced staff is not good enough. At a time when there is such a shortage
of staff and jobs are so easy to come by, there is a great temptation for
training institutions to pinch on training, shorten courses and dump half-trained
people on the market.
The solution may lie somewhere in
between. If the industry continues its rapid growth and new airlines continue
to spring up, unattached training institutions are a must. And there enough
synergy between airlines and other service industries, such as the hospitality
industry, for broader institutions to cater to all such industries together. At
the same time, airlines that aim for the upper end of the market will want
premium staff which they must train themselves. One way for them is to take
staff trained elsewhere and upgrade them; but there is another way. A few of
them could get together and set up a training institute that would train more
staff than they require. Some of them may find jobs outside the sponsoring
airlines, some may join them and leave soon; but if the throughput of the
institute is large enough, such losses can be borne.
The above observations apply to
the cabin and ground staff, but they cannot apply to cockpit staff. Pilots are
different in three ways. First, safety considerations require that pilots are
trained to perfection. Since the cost of training is high, this means that the
initial screening of the intake has to be rigorous. Second, the rigours of the
training require that it should be intense and long. Unlike the training of the
service staff which may last a few months, pilot training takes years. Third,
pilots cannot be trained without flying machines. This means an array of
airplanes and the supporting infrastructure – hangars, servicing bays, mechanics
etc. And finally, the primary qualification of a pilot is that he and his
passengers survive; and the final proof of this quality is experience. Hence
experience is bound to carry a premium.
This is why the traditional
source of pilots has been the air force: it has to train pilots, and most air
forces place a high value on fitness and hence retire pilots at an early age.
However, the pilot requirements of air forces in peacetime are limited; the
needs of airlines far outrun them. Those countries that make airplanes also
generally have training facilities for pilots to fly those planes. Others,
however, lag behind. The market for pilots is international, and hence poaching
is more universal. Hence Indian airlines have invested even less in pilot training.
Naturally they have run into huge shortages, and made them up by importing
them. Announcements during flights in Slavic or Hispanic accents are no longer
uncommon in India.
Although training may not be
profitable for a single airline, it can be highly so for the country. We have
relatively low-cost, well educated, highly motivated young people, and costs of
training in India are low. Airline training can be a profitable business, if
organized on a national scale. Here is a perfect opportunity for public-private
partnership.
