Air India chief Jadhav goes, joint secretary replaces for now

Rohit Nandan, a joint secretary in the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation, is likely to take temporary charge as chairman and managing director of Air India soon, replacing Arvind Jadhav, who was given the marching orders on Thursday evening.

Nandan’s appointment is expected to be an interim arrangement till a suitable candidate is found to head the loss-making airline for a fixed, five-year term. Orders by the Cabinet Committee on Appointments on Nandan’s appointment are expected in the next two days.

Meanwhile, a massive hunt has been launched to find a suitable long-term candidate for the airline.

Top sources in the civil aviation ministry say that several proposals are being considered to revamp the management structure of Air India. Among them is one which seeks to create two new posts of deputy MDs who would function under a CMD.

A somewhat similar structure was in place earlier too, just after the erstwhile Indian Airlines and Air India were merged in 2007, when the airline had a chairman and MD as well as a joint MD. But it was abandoned the very next year, when Jadhav’s predecessor Raghu Menon was hired as CMD.

According to sources, some aviation professionals approached for the AI top job in the last few days have declined to shoulder this responsibility. Then, some other interested candidates have themselves thrown their hats in the ring.

Among the bureaucrats who have been sounded out but have declined the offer is the current secretary in the department of chemicals and petrochemicals K Jose Cyriac; and V J Kurian, who heads the Cochin International Airport.

Another top aviation professional, with a wide experience in policy and regulatory decision making, has also declined the offer.
They were sounded out by the Prime Minister’s Office, but declined to take the responsibility of turning around the airline, which has losses of Rs70,000 crore.  

Sources tell us that two other contenders have made their interest in the top Air India job known. The managing director of erstwhile Indian Airlines, Sunil Arora, is keen to take the job. So is former Joint CMD of the merged airline, Vishwapati Trivedi. Neither Arora nor Trivedi responded to DNA queries on the issue.

Meanwhile, ahead of a crucial meeting of a ministerial panel on the future of Air India, the airline under Jadhav has emphasised improvement on operational front even as legacy issues on finances exist.

In a presentation sent to the group of ministers (GoM) headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, the airline said in areas such as passenger load factor, revenues and capacity utilisation, distinct improvements were seen in the past three years.

It has laid the blame for continued losses on high interest cost on loans taken for buying new aircraft as well as for working capital, which shot up from Rs1,722 crore in 2008-09 to Rs3,285 crore in 2010-11. The airline’s estimated loss for 2010-11 is `6,994 crore.