Air India Pilots Strike Continues

More than 800 pilots of the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) of the erstwhile Indian Airlines (IA) have been striking for 3 days now, demanding the ouster of Air India Chairman Arvind Jadhav, a fixed-pay salary and better work conditions.

They also demand that a CBI inquiry be initiated against CMD Arvind Jadhav and the policy decisions taken by him.

The pilots were thus far paid according to the number of hours they flew, and their earnings had of late dropped by 40% because of the Air India (AI) - Indian Airlines (IA) merger. The IA pilots demanded that they be paid on par with their AI counterparts.

In an effort to coerce the pilots into withdrawing their strike, the management has fired 9 pilots so far, but the pilots refuse to budge. The management may also invoke the Essential Services Maintenanace Act (ESMA).

Air India has incurred a loss of Rs. 26.5 crores over the past 3 days as nearly 300 flights were grounded by the strike. The national carrier was able to operate only 50 flights as against the usual 320, because all its executive pilots have also joined the stir.

13 of the 21 AI flights scheduled to take off from Hyderabad yesterday were grounded.

The Delhi High Court had on April 27th stayed the flash strike launched by the erstwhile IA pilots, while slamming the management for not addressing their demands earlier.

With over 16,000 passengers stranded across the country, AI may borrow Kingfisher's pilots to fly its Airbus A-320 aircraft. At present, the AI passengers are being accommodated in private airlines, including Indigo, Kingfisher and Jet, and the additional charges are being borne by AI.

Air India has frozen fresh ticket sales till May 3rd.

Exploiting this situation to their advantage, private airlines have hiked ticket prices by more than 100%.