Air India austerity: Can salad-free meals, fewer magazines help Maharaja survive?

With debt-ridden Air India’s future hanging in the balance, its employees are trying to cut costs in the smallest ways including taking salad off the menu and fewer in-flight magazines.

In a recent internal mail accessed by The Times of India, a senior Air India official informed top management that a cabin crew member had told him that only 20 percent of the economy passengers eat salad on international flights and so it made sense to do away with the item. The employees also suggested the airline carry fewer magazines.

“It may seem trivial but it is part of the resolve to reduce weight and remember the well-known saying that drops make an ocean,” the mail reads.

A lighter plane burns lesser fuel, thereby saving on costs.

“We have a few months to prove ourselves. Friends, Let us all resolve to increase revenues and decrease costs in a war like manner,” the mail goes on to add.

Air India has become a bottomless pit with thousands of crores of taxpayers’ money going into keeping the highly unionised airline afloat in the competitive sector.

The national carrier has a debt of around Rs 55,000 crore which it has been unsuccessfully trying to restructure.

Voices from the government in the recent weeks indicate that a decision on Air India is imminent.

Even as the government mulls privatising Air India, policy think-tank Niti Aayog terms the process "very, very difficult".

Moreover, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju has said it would be difficult to find a ‘bakra’ to takeover Air India.

The last time a debt-ridden carrier folded up was in 2012 — Vijay Mallya's Kingfisher Airlines shut down after amassing huge debt.