Air India today said the agitation by its employees over delay in payment of salaries for the month of June had no "impact" on the operation of its flights.
"The two-hour agitation by a section of Air India employees failed to have any impact on flights anywhere on Air India's country-wide network," it said in a statement here.
"As stated by the Air India management earlier, requisite steps had been taken to ensure total normalcy in operations so that passengers were not inconvenienced," the company said.
Reports reaching Air India headquarters from all stations indicate that departure and arrival of all flights during the two-hour strike period was as per normal schedule, it said.
Earlier, Air India Chairman Arvind Jadhav, in a notice warned employees that their participation in the strike would be viewed seriously and appropriate action would be taken, including deduction of wages and withdrawal of Productivity Linked Incentive (PLI) payment until further orders.
Despite the warning, employees of the national carrier "walked out" of work for two hours this afternoon as part of their nationwide protest against delayed payment of salaries.
In another communication, Jadhav said, "it appears that the gravity of the financial situation has not seemingly sunk in on all of us."
"There is an urgent need to have better understanding of ground realities because unless we know the magnitude of the problem we will not be able to take corresponding action for overcoming it," he said.
"It is of paramount importance that while we take steps to reduce our operating costs and sacrifice some of the privileges we have enjoyed over a period of time, we also need to exercise a choice between austerity and oblivion," he added.
Besides wages and salaries which need to be disbursed every month, fuel costs and bank liabilities like payment of interest and re-payment of principal amounts, have also to be paid on time failing which our operations could stop," Jadhav said.
Considering the critical financial state of the airline, we should all be prepared to face the impact of harsh decisions that will be required to be taken in the coming weeks to meet the current difficult financial situation," he said.
