Cash-strapped AI to shift office from CP to Safdarjung airport

The airline’s reservation offices located at Jeevan Bharti Building in Connaught Place, which had erstwhile Air India’s reservations, bookings, ticketing, sales and marketing offices, will shift to its new location at Safdarjung Airport from July 26.

The office at Safdarjung Airport, housed in the wholly-owned premises of erstwhile Indian Airlines, dealt with reservations and bookings of Air India’s domestic flights.

“The integration of the two booking offices would facilitate passengers in availing the complete range of services offered by the merged airline from one location itself,” a spokesperson of the airline said.

Apart from this, the airline would also benefit by savings in rental and incidental expenses to the tune of approximately Rs five crore annually, he added.

Ever since the merger of erstwhile Air India and Indian Airlines into National Aviation Company of India Ltd, the airline has been progressively integrating its booking offices all over the network into a single location in a phased manner.

The airline had already started its reservation operation from one centralised location in Kolkata, Lucknow and few other places, managing to save a substantial amount of money.

Air India, estimating a loss of Rs 7,200 crore in the last financial year, is targetting reduction in the employee cost to the tune of Rs 500 crore. Air India's current annual employee cost is about Rs 3,000 crore.

The cash-strapped national carrier has also announced a scheme under which an employee could voluntarily go on 2-3 years leave without pay. His job would be protected when he returns to the same grade and pay scale.

Also, Air India had deferred the payment of productivity linked incentives to its employees from July to August 20 as part of cost cutting measures.