The Air India management today toughened its stance against its agitating pilots, who fly abroad, by moving a contempt of court application in the Delhi High Court for not joining duty from today as ordered by the court.
It also terminated nine more pilots who did not report to duty on the third day of the agitation, taking the total number of pilots who have been sacked to 44.
The agitation of the pilots is slowly impacting the passengers with as many as 21 flights, including 11 domestic, of the 410 daily flights got cancelled today.
AI, which operates 120 international flights daily, has already lost over Rs 15 crore in the first two days.
Bracing itself for a long war with the pilots, AI, which had stopped taking bookings for international flights for the next five days, was forced to extend it till May 15.
Risk of losing bailout
Over 260 pilots have not joined for work in the last three days, upsetting AI’s schedules at a time when the airlines has just got cabinet clearance for a Rs 30,000 crore bailout package over a period of nine years. The package, which includes fresh equity infusion by the government, depends on AI’s performance which could get seriously jeapordised by the agitation.
“After the high court order, we had asked the pilots to join work by 10 am on Thursday. The pilots did not honour the court’s order, which is a case of contempt of court. The issue is likely to be heard by the court tomorrow,” said a senior Air India official, who did not want to be identified.
The bone of contention
The 550-member strong Indian Pilots Guild (IPG) is opposed to allowing erstwhile IA pilots to operate Dreamliners. Also, they want their career progression and time-bound promotions to be same as pilots from erstwhile Indian Airlines, which operates an Airbus fleet.
The erstwhile AI and IA followed different policies on training and promotion, wherein IA pilots got the commander’s grade in about six years, while it took a pilot 10 years in AI.
Meanwhile, the IPG pilots have decided to continue with their agitation and have asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh and United Progressive Chairperson Sonia Gandhi to intervene in the issue.
"Salary is not the issue for us. We have been working without salary for the past four months. It is about career progression and promotion. Why did you decide to train both AI and Indian Airlines pilots for flying Dreamliners in a 1:1 ratio even before implementing Dharmadhikari Committee Recommendation? We have tried contacting Ajit Singh and seek a meeting with him,” said IPG President Jeetendra Awhad in a press conference in Mumbai today.
On the other hand, Ajit Singh has categorically stated that talks can happen only when the pilots call off the strike. “I am ready to talk to them, but they will have to call off the strike first,” he said, adding that the decision to send both Airbus and Boeing pilots for training was taken on the basis of a Supreme Court order.
Agitation will bruise AI's balance sheet
The agitation is expected to seriously affect AI’s revenues and profit projections if it continues for a while.
“We have registered constant increase in our revenues for the last six months. Our performance has increased tremendously in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal, when we registered a 25% increase in international revenues and 40% increase in domestic revenues. This increase had given us an opportunity to rightly price our product. But all of that will go now and we will have to start from the scratch,” said a senior Air India official, who did not want to be identified.
The good news is that Air India has been able to arrest its falling market share of the international sector and commands a market share of over 20%. Just a few years ago, many international carriers, such as Emirates, were eating into its market share.
Also international flights which have got impacted constitute a larger percentage of the total revenue. About 60% of its daily revenue of Rs 37 crore comes from international operations.
Aviation analysts say pilots have been able flex their muscles for two key reasons — first, appointments of new pilots is a lengthy process so they cannot be replaced immediately, and secondly, the country faces a large shortage of commanders – the gap being over 500.
Also, AI has only 14 expatriate pilots, which is much lower than the industry average.
