NEW DELHI: Air India’s
first Dreamliner, Boeing 787, is all set to arrive on June 1. Captain
Soman, in-charge of the Boeing 787, has flown to Seattle from where he will be
flying the giant aircraft to India. Dreamliner will make its first trip to Mumbai
on June 2, sources in the Air India said.
The
object of obsession of both sections of pilots of Air India, has its first set
of crew ready to operate. “We are doing domestic destinations so that the crew
can fill the minimum requirements of landing/take off before it is launched on
the international segment,” the Air India official said.
However,
there is little progress on the Air India pilots’ stalemate with the Civil
Aviation Ministry.
While a
section of both the Air India and the Indian Airlines pilots are on training in
Singapore for the Dreamliner, the erstwhile Air India pilots are yet to back
down from their stand of not reporting to work.
On
Friday, the pilots’ union clarified that they were not in any kind of violation
of the Supreme Court order. “The court has clearly stated that we have not done
anything for obstruction of justice or to bring disrepute to the court. On the
contrary it has asked the management to sit with us and sort out the
differences. Don’t resort to contempt proceedings, the court has clearly said.
However no one from the management or the ministry is coming forward for
talks,” an IPG member said.
Meanwhile,
the ministry sources are clear that they are not going to bow to the demands of
the pilots’ union. “Heads are set to roll,” a ministry official said. “We are
very clear that we can shut our international operations instead of being held
at ransom every two months. And terminated pilots who have led the agitation
will definitely face the axe,” said a senior ministry official on condition of
anonymity.
Air
India’s market share stood at 17.6 per cent on statistics released for
January-April 2012 data. Indigo’s market share increased to 23.8 per cent while
Spicejet stood at 17.7 per cent.
AI’s
domestic cancellation rates was also amongst the highest at 5.2 per cent last
month, while their on-time performance stood lowest at 79.7 per cent compared
to other airlines.
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