Alliance Air to focus on cost control, phasing out of expat pilots

When C S Subbiah took over as the chief executive officer of Alliance Air in 2016 the carrier had a mixed fleet of ATR aicraft and old fuel guzzling CRJ jets. The airline had a limited number of ATR pilots and its daily fleet utilisation was a poor 4.5 hours per aircraft. Subbiah’s task was to replace all the old jets, bring in a single type of fleet and introduce new routes.

These efforts of over three years finally paid off after Air India’s subsidiary Alliance Air registered an operating profit of Rs 65 crore in FY 2020. This was its first operating profit since inception in 1996 and came on the back of lower expenses, increased aircraft utilisation and better yields last year. On a net level, however, it reported a loss of Rs 201 crore due to a change in accounting standards that requires airlines to capitalise lease costs.