News Courtesy : Times of India

NEW DELHI: 18 June:Air India is examining leasing about six wide-bodied aircraft to add capacity and replace some planes whose leases expire in the next few months.

The national carrier was looking at dry-lease as well as the wet-lease route, in case aircraft were not available through the former, AI CMD V Thulasidass told.

Announcing that tenders were expected to be issued shortly, he said wet-leased aircraft would be taken only from airlines and not from any leasing company. Under wet-lease, an aircraft is leased with cockpit and/or cabin crew while under dry lease, only the plane is made available.

He also clarified that this route would be taken only if dry-leased planes were not available and wet-lease would only entail pilots and not the cabin crew.

The AI chief said the airline planned to launch flights to Mauritius with the leased aircraft. Besides, Air India also plans to launch flights from Mangalore and  to Dubai in the near future.

He said Air India subsidiary, AI Express, would soon start operations to Kuala Lumpur from Chennai and was awaiting approval from the Malaysian government which, he hoped, would be available in the next few weeks.

However, Air India has begun these flights from Chennai last week with leased AI Express aircraft which were operating under AI codes, Thulasidass said.

In a bid to enhance productivity and remove deficiencies in the productivity-linked incentive (PLI) scheme introduced for engineering and other ground staff in 1996, the AI CMD said a six-member committee had been set up to review the PLI scheme.

The panel, which includes a member each from Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad), National Productivity Council and NITTI, besides Air India itself, would consult the Unions and the departments about the problems while making its recommendations within three months.

He said the need for a review of the scheme was felt following complaints from individual or categories of employees and stressed that productivity has to be the key objective, especially in the coming few years. Pilots and cabin crew do not avail PLI as their incentives are based on in-flight duties.

Asked whether it had received government approval for enhancing salaries or other benefits, Thulasidass said Air India had fulfilled the twin criteria of making profits for three years and did not require budgetary support to give a raise to its staffers.

Wage agreements have already been revised for some sections of employees and work was in progress for the other categories, he added.

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