Air India reaches out to retired pilots as deadlock continues

With no end in sight to the 11-day strike by a section of Air India pilots that has already cost the debt-ladden carrier around Rs 200 crore, the airline management on Friday reached out to retired pilots to fly its planes.

Air India has put in place a contingency plan to operate at least half of its international flights, including one-stop flights to the US. The airline’s executive or management cadre pilots are operating the planes. Seeking additional resources, the management has approached nine retired pilots, who until recently were on contract with the airline

The retired pilots are senior captains from the Boeing 747-400 fleet. Air India flies these planes on Jeddah and Riyadh routes, apart from using them for VVIP flights. “Their contracts were terminated three-four months back, as it felt their services were no longer necessary. However, now the airline management has approached them,” an airline official said, requesting anonymity.

To appoint real estate consultant
Air India was likely to appoint a real estate consultant very soon to prepare a road map for monetising its assets in India and abroad worth Rs 5,000 crore over the next decade, official sources said on Friday.

The move to monetise its assets at an average rate of Rs 500 crore every year for 10 years was part of the financial restructuring plan approved by the government, they said.

Though Air India officials said it plans to appoint the consultant by the end of next month, official sources said the appointment could be expedited and the consultant could be in place within the next two weeks.

In another development, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh is understood to have sought a report from Air India on how its call centre was being run by a company that operates a competing no-frill airline.

Any further action on the issue would be considered depending on the report on the issue from the national carrier.

He added that three of the contacted pilots had agreed to resume flying and had even underwent simulator training. He, however, said this would not make much of an impact as the number of recently retired pilots is few. According to the contingency plan, Air India cut its international flights by almost half. The carrier, which operates over 800 flights a week under normal conditions, has announced that it would be flying only 410 flights a week in the wake of the strike.

Meanwhile, the Indian Pilots Guild (IPG), whose over-300 members are on strike, showed no signs of ending the strike despite a Delhi High Court rap, which said the striking pilots could face contempt of court proceedings if they did not report back for duty.

On Thursday a division bench of the Delhi High Court had uphel the single bench’s order that declared the strike as illegal.

The pilots, however, say they are in compliance with the court order. An IPG member said the single bench of the high court had ordered that the pilots could not strike or hold dharnas and agitations inside the airlines' office premises.

The airline has lost revenues worth around Rs 200 crore in 11 days. Air India’s daily revenue is Rs 37 crore, of which international operations accounts for Rs 22 crore. Its international cargo revenue is about Rs 3 crore and international cargo bookings have virtually stopped because of disruption of flights.

Meanwhile, IPG committee members have started going back to Mumbai as their efforts to initiate a dialogue with Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh and ministry officials were futile.

‘Cancelling licence akin to chopping artist's hand’
IPG on Friday responded to a Directorate General of Civil Aviation notice on cancellation of pilots licences, saying the notice was bad in law and arbitrary. The response said the notice had been issued in undue haste, and added there was no corelation between the Delhi High Court order and the right to hold licence. IPG said cancellation of a pilot’s licence is akin to chopping an artist's hand. Such an act will destroy the pilots’ careers, it said.

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