How to Sell Air India
As the government tries to offload the national carrier, it’s making impossible demands.
Not exactly a bargain.
Photographer: Vijayanand Gupta/Hindustan Times
When Narendra Modi took office as India's prime minister just over four years ago, a top priority for the economic reformers who had supported his candidacy was the privatization of India's incredibly inefficient public sector. Among their biggest targets was the state-run airline, Air India -- a clunky, loss-making behemoth that has long been rendered irrelevant by buzzy domestic competitors. I would personally have cheered that outcome: Air India has lost my luggage almost every time I've flown it internationally, and now I'm willing even to endure a 12-hour layover in Kiev or somewhere rather than fly direct to India on our proud "national carrier." I'm not alone; Air India, once dominant, now has just 13 percent of the domestic market.
For the first few years of Modi's tenure, as oil prices dropped and airlines all over the world began to head into the black, the government refused to even discuss privatizing Air India. Then, after a prominent reformist was appointed as junior aviation minister, things slowly began to move. A few months ago, the airline was finally put up for sale. But last week, that process ended in the most humiliating manner possible for Air India and for the government: Not a single buyer came forward. The aviation ministry's chief bureaucrat said that they were "certainly looking forward to better participation than this," an assertion that reveals a most un-Indian gift for understatement.