Flight to profit

Air India might be in a financial mess but one department is actually making money: the public relations department. Recently, the PR department decided that since Air India is now one airline there was no reason to publish two in-flight magazines Namaskar and Swaagat. So it now publishes one magazine called AI Magazine. The production of the two earlier magazines was outsourced – one to the Pioneer group – and yielded Rs 22 lakh a month as royalty. But the next realisation was low because journalists producing these magazines were given free tickets to travel anywhere. Now a new publisher has been appointed for the single magazine, which earns the airline Rs 56 lakh a month — and sans the freebies.