The airline is taking a hit of Rs 14 crore per month due to the faulty PLI agreement signed with its employees which has resulted in the airline plunging into red. According to AI officials, the flight engineers while posted abroad are getting the benefit of PLI which is usually disbursed to the employees based in India. ``Thus, while the engineers are taking home a dollar-linked salary/allowances of as high as Rs 50 lakh per annum - depending on station - they are also receiving a PLI of Rs one lakh month,'' officials add.

Asking for a thorough probe into the entire PLI scam, officials say that the same PLI is notavailable to the commercial department employees posted abroad. ``While the contingent of 1,000 engineers and pilots are drawing 40 per cent of AI's total Rs 875 crore wage bills, other employees are feeling left out. CAG must investigate how a profit-making airline has dipped into red,'' they said.

Besides, officials say, Air India's misfortune aggravates every time the Indian currency depreciates vis-a-vis the dollar. In yet another faulty agreement, the then management had linked the entire allowances of all crew flying abroad with the US greenback. ``This has resulted in our salary bill going up by over 33 per cent just because the rupee depreciated against the dollar from 31.75 in 1994 to Rs 43.50 now,'' they add. Earlier, the pilots, engineers and cabin crew were getting their allowances in Indian currency which was overruled by the then MD, Capt D S Mathur who was himself a pilot.

Thanks to all these agreements signed by the previous management, Air India is finding it difficult to fly back intoblack. ``If we scrap these agreements... the unions have threatened to take us to court and strike work. Hence, it is difficult to just discard these bilateral agreements,'' officials said.

However, Air India did manage to register a marginal net profit of Rs 2 crore for the month of June and July due to good load factors and improved yields. It has experienced load factors of above 70 per cent on most routes. Though the in-flight services are still substandard, the improved yields have led to a 10 per cent rise in revenues. AI has targeted to cut down its losses to Rs 50 crore for fiscal 1999-2000 from Rs 200 crore recorded earlier.