New Delhi: Indian Commercial Pilot’s Association (ICPA) and the Indian Pilots’ Guild wrote to Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday on behalf of pilots of Air India, Air India Express and Alliance Air pilots requesting to call an urgent meeting over flight safety and working conditions of pilots.
Highlighting the woes of the pilots, it said, “flight safety and the working conditions of the pilots of Air India group companies cannot be seen in isolation. The recently imposed policies implemented by the Air India Board imposing steep, disproportionate and retrospective pay cuts specifically targeting pilots across Air India as well as Air India Express and Alliance Air are one such example.”
“Our pilots are constantly facing the challenges of COVID 19, monsoon weather, ill-designed flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL), several extensions and dispensations given by the DGCA. Trying to burden the frontline workers with massive pay cuts to safeguard the salaries and perks of senior management add an extra undesirable dimension to the equation,” it added.
The unions have requested Puri to treat the letter as a reminder “to our earlier letters dated July 27, 2020, and August 1, 2020, requesting an urgent meeting.”
“Aviation policy makers are creating a caustic work environment without any reproach or consequence,” it further said. (ANI)
