After the recent five-day agitation by Air India executive pilots, led by their representative Capt V K Bhalla (50), the National Aviation Company of India Limited (NACIL) must be ruing the day when, four years ago, they rejected Bhalla’s written request seeking permission to leave the company. Instead, the then management bent over backwards to accommodate Bhalla’s demands, revealed official sources.

In 2005, when the erstwhile Indian Airlines was conducting interviews for promotion of Commanders (senior pilots) to the management post of Deputy General Managers (DGMs), Bhalla refused to appear for an interview before a panel.

If disqualified, he would have been ineligible for a promotion for at least a year. Bhalla demanded that he be promoted without appearing for an interview.

When the management refused, Bhalla, in the first half of May 2005, wrote a letter to the management seeking a No Objection Certificate (NOC) for leaving Indian Airlines for a suitable career progression in another private airline. As per the then Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) rules, a pilot had to serve a six-month notice period.

But in just over two months, in the second half of July 2005, Indian Airlines, led by its then CMD Sunil Arora, agreed to Bhalla’s demand and promoted him, without an interview, to the executive post of DGM. Bhalla subsequently withdrew his letter seeking an NOC.

When contacted by The Indian Express, Capt Bhalla confirmed that he had indeed written a letter seeking an NOC as he wanted to quit the airline, and later withdrawn it. “In 2005, the management tried a trick. It gave executive positions to all pilots. I also became an executive pilot as I wanted to live a normal life. Maine socha ki ab yeh samaj-sudharak ki zindagi bahut ho gayee,” said Bhalla.

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