AI selects Booz, Rothschild for cost restructuring
Press Trust Of India / Mumbai Oct 12, 2009, 01:06 IST
Air India has selected global consultancy firms Booz Allen & Company and Rothschild to guide the national airline on its cost rationalisation and debt restructuring strategies.
“We have selected Booz & Allen and Rothschild to devise strategies on cost-rationalisation and debt-restructuring,” Air India sources told PTI here.
While Booz Allen is a leading strategy and technology consulting firm, Rothschild provides investment banking, corporate banking and private banking and trust services to governments, corporations and individuals globally.
Air India Chairman and Managing Director Arvind Jadhav is likely to hold a meeting with the senior management on the issue tomorrow.
The two global firms were selected through a bidding process in which other domestic and overseas firms such as Accenture, Ernst & Young and Ambit Finance Corp participated, the sources said.
Besides these, McKinsey, Deloitte and others firms gave their presentation on cost-rationalisation and debt-restructuring programmes to the Air India board, they said.
This is neither the first nor the will it be the last consultancy assignment handed over by Air India to foreign outfits to obtain "advice" on how to streamline its operations and restructure its finances. Air India's problems have been analyzed to death. What is needed is ruthless action which is not forthcoming and will not happen even after the latest round of consultants submit their report, pocket their fat fee and depart.
It is the death like grip that the Ministry of Civil Aviation exercises over Air India that prevents any hope of survival. Air India has no autonomy whatsoever. It cannot sack its bloated and largely incompetent workforce due to powerful politically backed trade unions. It cannot ask politicians to keep off its operations and demand special privileges while flying.
Air India cannot be revived so long it is with the Government. It must be privatized and the airline must be severely downsized if it has to survive.
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