‘Government failed industry’

Sanjay Datta, Managing Director, Airborne Holidays, says that while he is keeping his team’s morale high, there is going to be a serious impact on businesses and one has to work on new norms and practices going forward. He says that the crisis has led him to start from scratch once again.

Nisha Verma

Staying afloat is a major focus today, says Sanjay Datta, adding that he is keeping everyone motivated around him one way or the other. “For our business, we have developed a new concept of web conferencing for which we are already in touch with some of our existing clients as well as new clients. We did one conference recently with WHO, which was attended by almost 500 people,” he shares. Apart from that, clients keep checking in on resumption of flights and other information, for which they are trying to help people. “We have done a few charter flights also for people in need. We are trying to survive in any manner possible, and today everyone must cut costs drastically because the future of travel and conferencing in person will not be very lucrative, at least not for the next six to eight months. People like me have grown from the ranks. I started my agency in 1991, and now it’s a restart after 30 years. While our clients have assured us that they will stay, one cannot take clients or airlines for granted,” he says.

Addressing refunds

Insisting there will be new norms for working with the airlines, Datta says that they would decide how to deal with airlines because not all of them have refunded the money which was owed to clients. “It has instead been put into credit shells. The cash flow issue is there, hence, one will have to find ways of managing the business, which is very difficult. People will have to relook at businesses and rework normal practices so that new norms and practices can come into place. The crisis is going to change how we deal with people, airlines, corporate clients, etc. Unfortunately, we will have to do with much less staff and much less office space. Cash will be the king. Those who have cash will do well, and those struggling with cash would find it tough going forward,” he insists.

Changed relationships

Speaking on the relevance of associations and IATA, Datta shares, “Today, the matter is not that the support didn’t come from airlines, IATA or associations. It’s the government that failed to support the industry. This automatically failed the associations in front of members. However, to counter that, somebody came up with the MSME concept, where also the onus of repayment lies on an individual and not on the association. People who were smart enough had already enrolled for the same. However, the loans under MSME are not interest-free, but are free of collaterals and is against the amount of business one can do. Hence, loan will not be forthcoming to everybody and anybody who applies. Every financial institution would consider the risk factor involved and then only would give a loan. From what I have heard, travel and tourism is a high-risk sector, and hence loans might not be forthcoming.”

The future

“In 2021, I definitely see that people who cannot manage their cash flows and fixed costs would either close shop or do some alternate business. Hence, many would be leaving associations, suspending their IATA certification and renewals, to avoid any extra spend. People who are doing corporate business would be slightly better off than those doing B2B business, which would be affected to an extent.”

– Sanjay Datta