Sahara moves on poaching

Notwithstanding the inter-airline peace brokered by the civil aviation ministry over poaching of pilots and engineers, Air Sahara has received an injunction from a Noida Civil Court against Spicejet and Kingfisher Airlines.

This is to prevent the two airlines from luring Air Sahara professionals away.

Air Sahara President Rono J Dutta said today the airline would soon move court for a similar injunction against Air India Express, the low-cost carrier of Air-India. Air Sahara recently lost 10 pilots to Air India Express in just one day, which caused disruptions in its services in important sectors.

"We have taken legal recourse. We would rather encourage all other carriers to train their pilots and not poach from their competitors," Dutta said.

Air Sahara has also lost about 10 pilots to Spicejet and Kingfisher Airlines recently.

When contacted, Spicejet, the low-cost carrier of Royal Airways, said it had not received any communication from the court on the issue and that it was completely unaware of the development.

In a meeting convened by the ministry recently, the airlines had agreed to refrain from poaching and put in place hiring norms. The carriers had agreed that one airline would offer a four-month notice to another before hiring, put a bar on the number of people to be hired from another airline, and standardise salaries and perks.

But, having lost 20 pilots to competitors in a short span of time, Air Sahara is obviously peeved. Dutta said such poaching was in violation of this agreement.

"We are not against people moving to other organisations. But large-scale hiring from a competitor is not acceptable. We are now planning to invoke the conditions in the employment agreement with pilots," Dutta said.

He said the conditions would require pilots to give ample notice before quitting jobs as well as repay training charges incurred by Air Sahara, as stipulated in the employment agreement.

Dutta said Air Sahara, which had about 180 pilots at present, was in the process of training another 35 pilots.

He also said to meet its requirements, Air Sahara was now looking at hiring expatriate pilots. "Training your own pilots and hiring from other countries are the best options," he added.