So far so good. But can the Indian Airlines, with a fleet of 26 old (03 Dornier-228, 12 old Boeing 737-200 and even older 11 Airbus-300) and 30 middle-aged Airbus-320 aircraft compete with Jet Air's 25 new Boeing-737 (500, 700 and 800 version)? That is a question which needs probing.

Prima facie, however, the fleet of Indian Airlines is rendering a glorious service to the people and passengers of both India and her SouthAsian neighbours of Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives, the 07 destinations of the Persian Gulf, Central Asia's Kyrghyztan and the three South-East Asian states of Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. The fleet utilisation of the Indian Airlines also appears to be improving. Thus, the 11 Airbus-300 (the older machines of the Sarkari airlines) are doing 26,645 flying hours a year making the aircraft utilisation 73 flying hours per day and annually 2,422 hours per aircraft. In other words, assuming the utilisation of all 11 aircraft, the per day average comes to 6.63 hours, and 8.1 hours after allowing deduction of two aircraft for maintenance and to 90,000 flying hours resulting in 245 flying hours per day and an average of 8.1 flying hours (for full complement) or 9.3 hours per aircraft after leaving two for training and maintenance. The 12 old technology Boeing 737-200 workhorse of Alliance Air too are logging 35,000 flying hours averaging annually 2,920 hours per aircraft and 96 hours per day.In commercial terms this means eight flying hours per day for all 12 Boeing 737-200, and 9.6 flying hours after allowing downtime and training schedule.

That is not all. Destination and network of the Indian Airlines too deserve to be lauded. The 11 old Metro Airbus-300 which normally require a 7,000 feet to 9,000 feet runway for Calcut which requires special qualifications owing to large number of hillocks around the aerodrome. Operational problem notwithstanding, the 11 Airbus-300 now operate to 18 airports, five of which are Bangkok, Colombo, Kathmandu, Sharjah and Singapore. The 30 Airbus-320 also operate to an impressive list of 50 airports, included in which are 16 overseas airports of Bahrain, Bangkok, Colombo, Dhaka, Doha, Fujairah, Karachi, Kathmandu, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait, Male, Muscat, Ras-Al-Khaimah, Sharjah, Singapore and Yangon.

It is, however, left to the Alliance Air's 12 old generation smaller Boeing 737-200 to operate within the country and touch upon 43 Indian stations, 23 of whichhappen to be monopoly stations for this Boeing 737-200. In fact, barring a few, virtually all small airports with difficult and short runways are the operational areas of the 12 Boeing 737-200 of the Alliance Air. So much so that even the new technology and new generation Boeing 737-700 and 737-800 owned Jet Air lack both courage and confidence to operate where Indian Airlines Boeing 737-200 fly. This, the North-Eastern airports of Agartala, Aizawl, Dibrugarh, Dimapur, Silchar and Tezpur; South India's Vishakhapatnam, Madurai and Tiruchirapalli; Central India's Agra, Bhopal, Gwalior, Indore, Jabalpur and Raipur, Eastern India's Bhubhaneswar, Patna and Ranchi and North India's Udaipur, Jodhpur, Chandigarh and Leh do not exist for the high profile Jet Air which is mainly used to compete with the Indian Airlines in the lucrative metro routes leaving the old technology infested aircraft of Indian Airlines to operate to the remote, difficult weather airports.

Clearly the IA faces a daunting challenge in the 21stcentury. On the one hand, is its social duty to operate where even eagles dare not. On the other stares the stark reality. Forty six per cent of its aircraft inventory -- or 26 out of 56 -- are not only old and fuel guzzlers but are obsolete making the operational viability and financial profitability the management's nightmare and rival's joy.

What happens thereafter as and when the flights get disrupted owing to technical snag or bird hit, crew shortage or bad weather, air traffic controller's whims or airport authority's malfunction? What about the vagaries and the imponderable of human activity or the lack of it at various stages of flight operations? Are they showing any signs of improvement? Is anyone monitoring? The main area of concern even today is the human factor, an area which appears rather slow to react. Maintenance of time schedule is still a low priority for the government airlines as more often than not the 30 Airbus-320 are flying on minimum equipment lists. Reports of one-upmanship fromvarious metro bases show the tendency of passing the buck for the downtime maintenance of Airbus-320 to the station of onward journey.

Thus, Chennai's keenness to maintain flight departure schedule may push a semi-prepared aircraft to fly to Calcutta for the future major maintenance and taking the cue for punctuality, the same machine may leave Calcutta for Delhi or the North-East with a further deterioration in its functional (minimum) equipment list. And the show goes on owing to rivalry between various zones to be one up against other. The reports are real. One has seen it on a couple of occasions. Only the lack of public interest and indifference of the media ensure the veil of secrecy on an important issue of flight safety owing to common Indian perception that flying is a luxury and not a necessity. It would, however, not be correct to put the blame on aircraft engineers alone. The fact that an old aircraft means more downtime and is even more difficult to make available for timely operation is beingconstantly ignored and put in the backburner by the Indians themselves. Old machine also means product deficiency to passengers who have the better option to fly on time in new aircraft on same fare.

That is not all. The vagaries of the Airport Authority of India indeed are shocking and obnoxiously irresponsible to say the least. And that is no joke. Seeing is believing. And one saw it. So did 65 passengers and the crew of IC-887 on October 12, 1999 at 1.09 pm. It was a flight from Delhi destined for Mumbai. The aircraft Airbus-320 (VT-EPQ) with an all up weight of 64.2 tonnes and take off run weight of 64 tonnes suddenly came to a thudding halt at the edge of Delhi's main 28-10 runway. The shock was so sudden and profound that Captain S K Gupta had to apologise explaining that it was an inexcusable but unavoidable braking owing to a dog, which almost got run over by IC-887 A-320 (VT-EPQ), while cutting the taxiway from left to right. It was a clear broad daylight and Delhi's dog was loitering on itsinternational airport's main 12500 runway. God bless the Indian Airlines (and also others) which operate high-tech aircraft on a primitive (structured) airfields manned by equally callous, indifferent and irresponsible Airports Authority of India. If Delhi has a dog, can other airports of India stay far behind with live animals.

The author is alumnus of the National Defence College of India