Air India chief assures better security, financial progress

MUMBAI - Air India Chairman and Managing Director Arvind Jadhav on Saturday said that stricter security measures would be instituted by the national carrier, both at airports and inside aircrafts.

Addressing the media in Mumbai, Jadhav said that he was confident about new security measures taken in the wake of the recent incident of a security lapse when a man hid unnoticed inside a toilet in an Air India flight to India from Saudi Arabia.

“Any new heightened incident which happens will always call for extra checks and all that. The question comes up whether your procedures…whether your processes are very tight. Not procedures, but processes,” Jadhav said.

“We have tight security with us. In fact, I would like to say that our beefing up of security started much earlier than this incident itself because whether security audits are concerned at our airports or whether manpower is required…we look at both the issues about which is the best fit on the issue,” he added.

Jadhav further shared Air India’s financial progress, and said that their market shares have increased, which has brought them at par with the industry average.

“Our market share in August 2009 was around 16.6 percent and it has now increased about 18.8 percent and our seat factors are also now 74.1 percent on our network, which is comparable…we are matching the industry average,” he added. (ANI)