MK Should Ask Us To Name Five A350 XWBs

Like Qantas did a couple of months ago. But our national airline has ordered 6 of those planes I hear you say. I know. One of them has to be 12.3.68. And has to fly over the Champ de Mars at noon sharp on March 12, 2018.

AMCCA Says MK Flying Understaffed Planes

They're saying there should have been one or two more cabin crew resources on each flight. And that all of this stems from bad planning. It's not the first time they are voicing out these concerns.

Mauritius at 50: Getting Ready

Here are some of the things we should do:

1. Bring basic -- very basic -- management back. Like building another reservoir so we can catch more of all the water that falls on our head every year. And of course put more money into fixing leaking pipes. Instead of squandering billions into building new offices because one Minister wants more legroom.

2. Have an A380 fly over Champ de Mars at noon sharp. The peculiar thing about this plane is that it would not have any name. Only a few digits. 12.3.68.

3. New national logo and tagline. Which recognise that we can have the world's best air quality. This will help improve our management. Ask Southwest Airlines.

4. Significantly reduce the 450 amputations that are done every year. We could start by immediately taxing soft drinks more and increasing the number of weekly PE classes in our schools to three. Redesigning the curriculum with the 9-amputations-a-week statistic in mind and by going for noncumulative semesters will also produce a better learning experience. And say goodbye to obese parrots.

5. Reinstate progressive taxation so we grow faster again. And allow us to be more mindful.

6. Tweak our electoral system in a thoughtful way. Without introducing a dose of PR and the dangerous party lists that come with it. A few hysterical Marxists who want to do "autogestion" with our iPhone of constitution won't like it. But that won't prevent us from sleeping tight.

7. Allow kreol as an option in which debates in Parliament can happen. That's the language more than 8 out 10 Mauritians speak at home. Lalit can provide an initial list of unparliamentary words or add an entry on Wikipedia.

8. Schedule Zurnal Televize (ZT) on the first channel at 19h30. Have one reporter posted in each of these three cities: San Francisco, London and Tokyo to help cure navel-gazing.

9. Merge the CWA and CEB into a superutility. To protect us from severe Ministerial delusions. And to go back to our interesting 1996 carbon footprint.

Saving the rest for Mauritius at 500.

Did Etihad Airways Receive Subsidies?

No according to a former CEO of MK who works for the Gulf airline. Yes according to a group of American airlines who put governmental help dished out to Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad at $42 billion. Essentially by adding interest-free loans, capital injections, benefits of government guarantees, absorption of fuel-hedging losses and low airport charges.

A couple of months ago The Wall Street Journal mentioned that Eithad had sent a report to the US authorities acknowledging help of a little over $14 billion from its government. Some of that help was reported by the Australian Financial Review back in May 2014.

So I guess -- for our national strategic interest -- we should be very careful not to get mesmerized a bit too quickly. Air Mauritius has a brilliant future if it is allowed to operate on strong bases of meritocracy.

Mauritian FB Pages With The Most Likes

I googled but didn't find any lists. But it's not difficult to get a rough idea:

Air Mauritius: 520,672; L'express: 207,879; Lux* Island Resorts: 123,358; MCB: 104,479; Beachcomber: 72,249; Defimedia Group: 45,843; PMSD: 31,432; ION News: 31,348; SBM: 30,213; MMM: 30,172; Parti Malin: 27,975; Mauritius Labour Party: 27,825; Courts: 25, 268; Le Mauricien: 18,863; Flying Dodo Brewing Company: 13,670; J Kalachand: 5,474; MSM: 5,055; MPCB: 2,710; Le Matinal: 1,564; Kozelidir: 288 (Yahoo!); Conserverie Sarjua: 177.

So the PMSD and Party Malin have more likes than the Labour Party. I guess these two parties will win by a landslide in the next general elections. MK looks like it will be the first company to hit a million likes. When you deal with more than 1 million passengers every year surely it's no big surprise that you are right on the top here. But likes don't necessarily mean a lot as people like pages for all kinds of reasons. And page administrators don't all do as good a job.

2013: The Year in Review

January: The Economist says party lists are evil. Humanity starts its biggest gathering. Former MK boss explains how he was fired. Berenger announces he has throat cancer, steps down. Joseph beats Jackie Chan and wins award. Gandhi's assassination turns 65.

February: IPP contracts made public, finally. Heavy-rain shuts down water-starved Dodoland. Pistorius shoots model girlfriend by mistake. CEB contemplates getting Mauritius its own Fukushima. His Airness turns 50 and world longs to see Mike back. After attacking our rupee with our own money Duval tries to usurp the PM's prerogatives. PM says changes to electoral system shouldn't be done on a whim, promises consultative paper.

March: Women contribute a third more than what Mao thought. Fifteen centimetres of rain kill eleven in a flash.

Read the review for Q2, Q3 and Q4.

Former MK Boss Explains How He Was Fired

This was in an interesting interview which appeared yesterday. He's talking now two years after the event because he is suing his former employer and was bound by a contract clause.

Another interview worth reading is that of former Chief Justice Victor Glover who thinks that Justice Balancy shouldn't give 3-page interviews every 3 weeks.

Any comments?

2012: The Year in Review (Q3)

July: Barclays chairman quits over Libor-rigging. Scientists say bump in data is cosmic molasses. Kuma Pyongyang TV kav sanz biltin linformasyon. Ramgoolam rat enn lot randevu ek listwar. Ki groser enn telefon bizin ete? Court says Galaxy not as cool as iPad. And how many speak kreol in the air? Do we know how to manage an airline? It's not geography, stupid.

August: Politicians, not our democracy, tired. Dekortikasyon lingwistik JT promye ut. Singapore never chased growth desperately. How low taxes have degraded our environment. 18 miners die over pay dispute. CSR not a good yardstick for our altruism. State proudly hatching traffic frankenstein. Humanity experiences biggest blackout. Mauritius at 56th spot in PISA math ranking. Meet the ABS.

September: Obama gets a little help from new friend. Indian PM worth 10.73 crore. iOS 6 dumps Google Maps.

Read the review for Q1, Q2, Q4.

Souhaitons Que Le Stimulus Package N'entraine Aucun Abus

Balluck Still Trusting Viljoen

At least for the next little while because MK was in a mess before his arrival. Unlike Bizlall who has apparently lost confidence in the CEO's ability to turn the company around. That what Balluck explained to l'Express this morning along with some of the good initiatives -- including the setting up of a fact-finding committee into the hedging debacle -- the small shareholders of our national airline would like management to implement.

Pure common sense. Just listen to it.

Do We Know How To Manage An Airline?

If you look at the fortunes of Air Mauritius over the past few years you are likely to conclude that we don't. That would be a big mistake though because it has not always been like this. There have been some really smart people who have worked there for many many years and who still do. And who knew what managing an airline -- that includes hedging -- is all about.

Besides there are some incredible Mauritians -- sufficiently high enough in the food chain -- who could turn this baby around and make us all proud. So we need to start sending unambiguous signals that we are putting competence first again.

And How Many Speak Kreol in the Air?

We know 84% of Mauritians use kreol at home. Many Mauritians speak kreol on MK too. The funny thing is that they are often spoken back in an alien language by the flying staff. Which is the right thing to do because speaking kreol -- unlike hedging -- is not one of MK's core competencies. We leave that to infinitely inferior airlines like Emirates where Mauritian passengers are routinely shown a higher level of empathy by being answered back in their home language.

All is not lost though. We just need to find out where exactly is that country where our kreol can be learned.

MK Posts Rs800 Million Loss for 9 Months

And it's blaming higher fuel costs for the shortfall. I guess everything else is perfect at our national airline.

Tirvengadum Declared A Vegetable

By a psychiatrist in court two days ago. So that criminal charges against him in the MK black-box saga have been dropped. Deven T has a pretty good idea on how we could be double sure about his condition.

It's Not Getting Better, Is It?

MK reports that one yield statistic has reached a record level. Is that an indication of better management already? Not really.

See, they lent out one of their planes recently -- for which they self-congratulated themselves -- so that they are offering less seats to and from the land of c'est un plaisir. That should lower the number of empty seats aboard each time one of their planes takes off, right?

Well, it also depends on how traffic is doing. Although traffic fell over the past little while, it hasn't fallen enough so as to depress yields as much as renting that plane has increased it.

Self-confessed Smart CEO Explains Rip-off

As newly-minted Chairman of MK. Blame it on our non-stop flights he says. So I guess the prices for the 20-minute flights to Reunion island will go down to more reasonable levels once they stop over on Ile de la Passe for a couple of hours. Why didn't we think of this before?

How then does he explain that it costs Rs5,500 to fly from Mauritius to Rodrigues and back but Rs8,300 if you start in Rodrigues instead?

Global Recession Less Harmful than Sithanen

So far. That's what more and more voters of Belle-Rose/Quatre-Bornes are concluding. And they are perfectly right. I mean can the Finance Minister tell us what's the link between toxic financial assets almost breaking the US economy and the STC losing Rs3 billion on hedging exposures they don't even have?

Just like MK can't really blame factors beyond its control for its trouble. They got themselves in a mess because of a flawed commercial policy and because too many board members don't know what board members are supposed to do. And nothing much is going to change because they're not doing anything different.

Why Mauritians Everywhere Snub MK

Price is probably the most important factor. You know our national airline got its commercial policy upside down when it costs the same to travel to Reunion Island and to the UK and when Mauritians established in Australia start thinking that it might be cheaper for them to fly to the moon than to their zil.

Another important reason is that we don't feel that we are travelling on the national airline because there is not much that reminds us that we are. For instance outgoing crew messages are not aired in creole and some flying staff find it perfectly normal to engage in a bilingual and unearthly conversation: you speak in kreol, they reply in french.

MK's Attitude is Grotesque

They want Rs300,000 from Awadh Balluck, a representative of our airline's small shareholders' association, to include his common sense motions on the agenda of the July 22 meeting. These motions include that the CEO's salary be brought to Rs1,000 per month until MK returns to profitability, a reduction in the number of board members to seven with one from the small shareholders' group, directors getting 2 free tickets per year only while serving the company, that a hedging specialist be hired and that a commission of inquiry be instituted to find out about the hedging scandal. These are very reasonable motions consistent with basic notions of corporate governance.

The funny thing is that a couple of years ago he didn't have to pay anything for similar motions. Hmm, what's exactly is going on here? Here's one way out of this. Get the NPF to pay the Rs300k for corporate governance's sake - a bit like what CalPers has been doing for ages. The Prime Minister, of course, has to share some responsibility in this given that he pulled the CEO out of his hat.

Don't Kick'em When They're Down

So said Xavier-Luc Duval in Parliament this week. He was referring to the outrage that was sparked over the pay packet of the new CFO at MK. What the Minister seems to be forgetting is that an otherwise healthy and strategic company was kicked to the ground by an incompetent CEO and a Chairman that were handpicked by the Prime Minister and a board, which includes Ali Mansoor, that failed to uphold even the basic principles of corporate governance. And ironically that all of these people, save one, are still around to get at least another chance to kick MK while it's down.

Nevertheless, the compassion expressed by XLD this week puts him in a special position to understand the sufferings of the beautiful people of Mauritius who have been brutally thrown to the ground by Mansoor and Sithanen before being relentlessly kicked by these two bean-counters. The latest kick is the accounting gimmick of making us pay for the outlandish Rs3 billion of hedging losses sustained by the STC so that it doesn't show up in his deficit numbers.