The Air India pilots’ union, Indian Pilots Guild & Pilots’ Association (IPG-ICPA) has written to the airline, complaining about shortage of pilots among other difficulties.
Issues employees faced
Some of those are long work hours, pay cuts and deteriorating work-life balance.
Pilots have flown over 90 hours per month on all fleets which exceeds the 70-hours norm.
This can endanger passengers due to pilot exhaustion which is not an uncommon occurrence in commercial flight history.
Putting their foot down
The airline management is also accused of denying and canceling leaves to pilots and punishing them with pay cuts on the months that they fall sick, avail leave or undergo training.
The union said that they can no longer sacrifice their quality of life, work-life balance, and long-term health.
They further said they were dissatisfied due to not being paid the pre-COVID pay structure.
Meanwhile, the airline is recruiting expat pilots for 777 fleets at an 80 percent higher CTC than current long-serving pilots.
Airline denies allegations
The development comes days after the airline denied reports of shortage of cabin crew and instead said it was hiring proactively to cater to the rising demand for flight travel.
A spokesperson said, “Some of the flights have faced operational issues but these are sporadic and the same has been addressed promptly.
However, rumours regarding cabin crew shortage are completely baseless”
First batch post Tata-takeover
Earlier on December 2, Air India had announced that its maiden batch of cabin crew trainees along with a batch of new pilots brought in after privatisation have graduated.
“The batch of 215 cabin crew and 48 pilots, all Indian nationals, received their wings following extensive training and are now cleared to operate as fully-qualified crew,” it said in a statement.
The training programme included classroom and in-flight training at its training facility in Mumbai as well as familiarisation flights.
Aiming for the sky
40 new male and eight women pilots completed their training at the airline’s Hyderabad training campus and will commence operating on the Airbus A320 fleet.
As per the airline’s statement, aside from the two graduating batches, more than 59 new pilots were in various stages of training to support the airline’s ambitious growth plan.
