Beginning Sunday the 3rd March of 2019, I embarked on a series of articles on our national flag carrier - DrukAir, titled “On The Wings Of The Dragon”. More than four years have gone by and I am on to my 10th article in the series. But the pitiful state of affairs at the DrukAir remains unchanged.
If it hadn't been for the ever-surging exodus of Bhutanese youth to Australia, the Druk Thuksey recipient would be the proverbial "Ghost on Wings"
It was in my 5th article in the series published on Saturday 9th of March, 2019 that I had written as follows:
“Thus, only a national flag carrier with a social mandate has the compulsion to operate in Bhutan’s existing conditions. This also means that we have to accept that Druk Air cannot be mandated to make profits - there is simply no way it can, UNLESS IT DOES SO AT THE COST OF OTHERS, AND OUR NATIONAL INTEREST. Therefore, the next best thing for the government and for the airline company is to focus on up-scaling carrying capacity, service, safety and security - to work towards creating the enabling conditions for others to generate jobs and income. In other words: support the tourism industry - by rationalizing their fares and increasing carrying capacity. What the airline cannot make, the tourism industry will augment a hundred fold.”
My last article - the 9th in the series - will prove that I have been right all along - the DrukAir has consistently stood in the way of progress of Bhutan’s tourism industry - policy failure being another!
My ten articles on the DrukAir can be read at the following - I encourage you to read them so that you have a grasp of the realities behind the creation of the DrukAir:
I have said this before and I am saying it again - the DrukAir should be delinked from the DHI and categorize it as a social enterprise - at par with FCB, Bhutan Post, FMCL, BDBL, CSI Bank etc. Thousands of millions of Ngultrum of the Bhutanese people’s money have been spent in the creation of the airline - it must serve the Bhutanese people's interest - not some private individual interest.
Billions of Indian Rupees, and hundreds of millions of $$ in company revenue is being lost to competing airlines - resulting from the DrukAir’s pigheadedness and incapacity to read the writing on the wall. If that were not enough, they directly contribute to the falling numbers in tourist arrivals - by pricing their fares at a level that deter potential travelers.
Comparative study of DrukAir's fare as opposed to that of Qatar Airways'
When His Majesty the Fourth Druk Gyalpo created the DrukAir in 1981, it was not that He had any lofty commercial aspirations - not with one unpressurised 18-seater Dornier 228-200 turbo-prop aircraft and one solitary airstrip measuring less than one-and-a-half miles long. It was a statement of nationhood - an assertion of independence - an announcement to the world that Druk Yuel was an independent nation with the necessary apparatus of nationhood in place.
It was to unshackle a gagged nation, a baby step towards setting free a choked nation - to give it wings to take flight and transcend boundaries - to swim and float in the infinite skies of freedom and opportunity.
It is criminal that the same enterprise of hope and deliverance is now being used to shackle the Bhutanese people’s spirit of enterprise.
No further proof should be needed - it has sufficiently been proven that DrukAir is one of the contributing agents to the country's dangerously depleting foreign exchange reserve, which includes the precious Indian Rupee. Their unreasonably exorbitant airfare helps divert revenue to competing airlines - this is in a situation where they have complete monopoly over the Bhutanese skies. It is for the same reason that Bhutanese tour operators have lost their clients to competing tourism destinations elsewhere - because Bhutan as a tourist destination is becoming more and more expensive - even to the rich and the upwardly mobile.
END NOTE
Institutions do not have conscience - but the people who run them are supposed to. And, if there is even one person among those who run and manage the institution, he/she ought to understand that as an institution behind which the country has invested thousands of millions of citizens' money, the DrukAir's first duty and obligation is to the nation and the people of Bhutan - not its narrow objective of profit making. The DrukAir cannot make profit - it is simply impossible - the odds are stacked against it.
But certainly the DrukAir can ably act as a vehicle on which a thousand other institutions can ride to great success; it can lend its wings to a thousand other establishments to help them scale great heights and achieve success and glory; it can help few hundred thousand people across the country to see the light of day.
It could, perhaps, even help slow down the GREAT MIGRATION!
But all these will happen only when the leaders of this country accept that it is not fair to forsake the interest of thousand others, in order that they can protect the interest of a few.
Think these Points must be raised to the Drukair Management (board)
ReplyDeleteRaising concerns and voice is one thing, but just blogging without ear to listen is another thing!