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AI pilots want interim relief or will strike
Despite assurances from the Civil Aviation minister Vayalar Ravi to address their concerns, Air India’s pilot’s union, the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), said it will withdraw the strike if an “interim relief” is extended and “management shows seriousness” in resolving issues.
The ICPA, claiming to have lost a substantial part of the salary due to route rationlisation, has given a 14-day notice to strike work from March 9.
Appealing to pilots to withdraw the strike, Ravi said a three-member committee headed by retired Supreme Court judge Justice SC Dharmadhikari, and two other members from law ministry and department of personnel and training would be constituted to look into working conditions parity issues.
“The committee will be asked to submit its report in a time-bound manner of 4-6 months,” Ravi said. The ministry is likely to announce the names of committee members on Tuesday.
Ravi said that pilots admitted in the meeting that immediate wage parity may not be possible. However they raised the issue of ‘passages.’ A ‘passage’ is referred to as the fixed number of free tickets or heavily discounted tickets airline employees and their families are eligible for in a year.
“Since merger, we have been losing out unnecessarily. Ever since we became Air India (referring to the common AI code instead of separate code AI and IC), we cannot take out our families on international sectors as our passages have been taken away. With great difficulty, we are able to obtain these passages on domestic sectors.”said ICPA general secretary Rishabh Kapoor.
“We want our immediate grievances to be settled and restoration of what we had. Employees were supposed to have benefitted from merger, but we are the only section that has lost out,” said ICPA president Bhinder. Union representatives are scheduled to meet the chief labour commissioner, in presence of airline management for conciliatory proceedings on Tuesday morning.
In a 45-minute long meeting, the minister asked the 7-member ICPA delegation, led by Bhinder and Kapoor, to submit their demands to the government. “It’s a matter between me and my children. I have heard them and asked them to submit their demands to the (civil aviation) secretary. The secretary will discuss it with the Air India management,” Ravi said.
ICPA , representing over 500 pilots from erstwhile Indian Airlines, has been demanding parity with counterparts from Air India.
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