Recently Jet airways was in news for serious violation of air safety when the pilot of one of their planes allowed a trainee to land a plane full of 200 passengers in Mumbai. The people got jitters over the incident and started wondering whether the airlines really follow any safety norms at all..! The kingfisher has recently grounded several flights at last minute due to severe debts and no operating cash.
We capture some light hearted moments during a frank indoor discussion by the airline heroes, Naresh Goyal, Vijay Mallya and Captain Gopinath. They were discussing the airline safety one evening. They were at Mallya’s residence, so the liquor was flowing in full stream and all the three were already high in spirits.
Mallya said to Goyal,” Naresh, what is this? I heard that you were in trouble recently about some trainee landing a plane in Mumbai. What is the problem?
Goyal cleared his throat and said in a matter-of-fact way,” See Vijay, these guys in media you know, they blow up anything and everything out of proportion. It was just a case that one of our trainees sat in the pilot’s chair and landed the plane in Mumbai. The pilot and co-pilot were there observing him … yet the DGCA and media say it was a safety issue.”
Captain Gopinath took mouthful sip from his fourth glass and listened to the conversation, half smiling in his mind.
Mallya said,” Did any accident happen? I mean was the landing good? Or there were any excessive jerks?”
Goyal said,” Not at all. The plane landed very safely. Actually, we have done it many times before. All our trainees fly planes right from their second week of employment with us. They are all young guys with adventure in their minds. They get thrilled to fly a plane. And it helps me also.”
Mallya wondered how it helped Goyal. And he asked it.
Goyal said in hushed tone,” See, you know that these days the profit margins are very low. The staff is not paid salaries regularly. There is a constant threat that the pilots may go on a flash strike. The experience of trainees comes very handy in such a scenario. The operations continue instead of coming to a halt, giving bad publicity.”
Mallya and Gopinath were amused at this thought.
Now it was Goyal’s turn to ask Mallya. He asked Mallya,” Why, you do not do this?”
Mallya cautiously looked around and said,” Yes, and much more. Whenever there is a shortage of air hostesses, our pilots take off and then go in the passenger’s area to serve lunch / dinner. He comes back to his seat just in time to land the plane. No one knows, and that’s it.”
Goyal looked surprised at this revelation.
They looked at Captain Gopinath and asked him,” You have been a specialist in the budget airlines segment. What measures did you adopt to cut costs?”
Gopinath thought for a while whether to say something or not and then said,” We did many things which were not known to the DGCA or the media. The art is in doing things without knowledge of these guys.”
Both Mallya and Goyal listened intently to discover the methods to save money.
Gopinath continued,” First of all, we never kept any safety jackets / accessories in our plane. Because, there will be no accidents. And if at all they happen, the accessories would be to insufficient to save any lives.”
Mallya and Goyal were shocked.
Gopinath added,” Moreover, we removed the toilets from our planes and added 6 more seats to increase our revenue. After all, all our planes were flying over short distances you know, so toilets are not in use most of the time.”
Gopinath was now getting high and looking at Mallya and Goyal as thought he was their professor giving them lessons on economics.
Gopinath’s gems of economic wisdom continued,” We had a tie up with many 3 star hotels. Whatever food remained with them was sold to us at half price the same night and we used it in our flights for next 18 hours. The food was supplied to our passengers anyway at a cost, and whoever bought it had no option but to eat it.”
Gopinath was now in full flow. He said,” The tyres are one more area where we saved significant costs. We retreaded the tyres three times before discarding them. We also bought the used tyres from foreign airlines at cheap prices.”
Suddenly both Mallya and Goyal started feeling as though they were wasting their money as these years. There were so many avenues to improve the operating efficiencies of the airlines.
It was now Mallya’s turn to reveal his more secrets. He said,” We secretly ran a campaign in our staff… whoever brings more passengers to us gets a bonus. It was our style of ESOP. They knew that to get their salaries full and in time, they need to get customers to fly in our planes.”
Goyal suddenly remembered something and said,” Yes, once it so happened that our pilot did not turn up at the last minute. We ran an announcement in the plane that anyone who can fly the plane can travel free. His ticket cost would be reimbursed, at the destination.”
“Why at destination?” asked Mallya.
Goyal said,” Well, we decided to pay at destination because then it would mean that the plane has landed safely there. If not, there would be no question of reimbursement at all…!”
The three men continued talking till late in the night discussing various ways and means to cut costs in operating the fleet of aircrafts. They all got wiser from one another’s experiences.
Meanwhile, the people continued to fly, oblivious of the risks they were taking. After all, the life and death of people was decided by many other factors such as their fate, their sins, their good / bad time etc.
The safety in plane was too small a factor to determine their destiny.
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