Turnaround strategy for airlines - "shut down"

Vijay Mallya is flamboyant even in the face of absolute ruin. Here he says "This long-awaited initiative will stabilise the aviation industry and provide much needed financial stability to airlines. In response to the initiative from the government, Kingfisher will immediately reduce air fare across the board as soon as the declared goods classification is approved."

But has he got a choice? He knows he is in deep trouble after having lost 60% of his passengers ever since he cannibalized Air Deccan (the LCC) and hiked the fares. The whole of aviation industry is bleeding as former air travelers flock to not so badly run Indian railways. I used to fly Bombay-Delhi often earlier but after my recent journey by Rajdhani Express (overnight, complete with A/C sleeper, dinner, breakfast, beverages and water), I am a card carrying member of the Rajdhani user club. Soon I’ll be a fan of Indian railways.

I save a lot too in time and money. The airport is an hour’s drive from home, will have to check in at least an hour before and then at the destination, I’ve to pay for the cab for another hour’s drive. The total cost of one way travel between Bombay – Delhi will be about Rs.8500/-. By train, it costs me just one-fourth of that. Given that there is a recession around and the stock markets are scraping at the bottom, the savings don’t hurt at all!

As I see it, there’s one sure way how airlines can get back into black – “shut down”!

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A bailout for everyone?

Bailout – seems to be the latest trend. After Wall Street banks lined up before the US Fed, it’s the turn of India’s private carriers before the Ministry of Finance.

They want the government to bail them out by -

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- Offering Interest-free loan with a “bullet” (one-time) repayment after three years
- Bringing ATF under ‘declared goods’ for uniform sales tax
- Reduction or withdrawal of duty on spare parts for aircraft maintenance
- Scrapping customs and central excise on ATF
- 50% reduction in airport landing, route and terminal navigation charges for 24 months
- Freeze on further increases in airport service charges

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Vijay Mallya (Kingfisher Airlines) has an interesting aside “The government has not moved at all. It seems it wants everybody in this country to travel by train because the airlines are bleeding heavily”.

Imagine Vijay Mallya in Punjab mail…!!!

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The Airline experience

The progression (if not evolution) of successful industrialists sometimes baffles me. Doesn’t success yield some experience? I see airline after airline collapsing all over the world. Oil prices and operating costs are soaring, demand slows down, flights get cut. Few of them have even gone bankrupt. Still enterprises that make money from successful businesses head straight towards the airstrip. Vijay Mallya made money from his liquor and other businesses set up Kingfisher airline that is bleeding. Subroto Roy (Sahara, now sold out), Dr.B.K.Modi (Modiluft, sold out), East West, NEPC, Damania (closed down / soldout) are all examples. Mallya found LCCs as the culprits and bought out Air Deccan (now eyeing Spicejet) to consolidate his business. May be he'll get to own 40% market share. But to what purpose when the pie itself is shrinking? The high passenger load factor that allure investors is because of LCC fares. If they are gone, passengers too will be. Remember they used to take the trains before. They will, in future. [The upright seating airlines offer has already forced many to reconsider their mode of travel, now they drive up fares and cut flights too - last nail?] That leaves the managements to put up with soaring fuel costs, expensive pilots and maintenance crew. Here is Naresh Goel’s Jet Airways endorsement. I am sure fellow industrialists would be watching this spectacle.

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Or did they? At least some of them who are up close, like GMR infrastructure – that builds large Airports are expected to know better. Apparently they see something that we obviously don’t. Perhaps they are right. But I am certainly curious. Who can bet on this business? What are the odds of success?

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Here's Warren Buffett on Airline industry -

"I made the comment that if a capitalist had been present at Kittyhawk back in the early 1900s, he should have shot Orville Wright. He would have saved his progeny money.

But seriously, the airline business has been extraordinary. It has eaten up capital over the past century like almost no other business because people seem to keep coming back to it and putting fresh money in.

You've got huge fixed costs, you've got strong labor unions and you've got commodity pricing. That is not a great recipe for success.

I have an 800 number now that I call if I get the urge to buy an airline stock. I call at two in the morning and I say: "My name is Warren and I'm an aeroholic." And then they talk me down."

Prove me wrong. I'd be obliged.

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Consolidation in Indian skies - putting the cart before the horse ?

The frenetic activity in India’s fledgling airline industry [Jet-Sahara, Kingfisher-Air Deccan, Air India-Indian] intrigues me no end. I normally am tempted to go by the general opinion of investors across the world about this industry, which in summation is that - a profitable airline is a dysfunctional one.

There’s this favorite airline industry stat, offered up by a recent Bloomberg article:

Historical profits: $18 billion
Historical losses: $32 billion

Internationally, the performance of aviation industry has been characterised by boom and bust cycles with a period of robust growth in operations and profits giving way to losses and an inevitable search towards consolidation. This is in the very nature of the cost structure of airline operations where fixed costs such as aircraft lease rentals, depreciation and staff costs could be as high as 50 per cent of sales. Even a marginal decline in traffic volume or a nominal addition to capacity arising from the entry of new players can undermine the viability of incumbent operators. The current wave of consolidation sweeping the Indian skies may appear to be in accord with the global trend, but is actually different in one respect. The consolidation is happening even before the industry has achieved a state of stable and orderly growth (and hence the title). The sector was opened to private competition, just a few years back. The period since then has witnessed one of the most exceptional record of buoyancy in national prosperity. In the event, the new entrants can perhaps be pardoned for viewing the future with an optimism that in hindsight may not only be regarded as excessive but did not prepare them to withstand the pressures of the market place.

Get this perspective from none other than legendary investor Warren Buffett:

"If I'd been at Kitty Hawk in 1903 when Orville Wright took off, I would have been farsighted enough, and public-spirited enough -- I owed this to future capitalists -- to shoot him down."

Seems the airlines are in bad need of a visit from the business model doctor.

It seems Vijay Mallya and Naresh Goel have different ideas. Well, you can argue there are millions of Indians that haven’t had their maiden flight experience as yet, who would love to take to the skies if the fares are affordable. How easy a task is that - coming to think of soaring oil prices, high lease rentals, wage inflation, shortage of pilots and trained in-flight, maintenance and repair crew.

Well, who am I to say that? John M Keynes quote captures it best as he says -

“A large portion of our positive activities depend on spontaneous optimism rather than on mathematical expectation…If animal spirits are dimmed and the spontaneous optimism falters, leaving us to depend on nothing but mathematical expectation, enterprise will fade and die.”

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Won't you join me in raising a toast to that ?

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