The crisis in Air India worsened on Friday with the
airline management sacking 25 more pilots and writing to DGCA to cancel the
licenses of 11 dismissed office bearers of the Indian Pilots Guild (IPG) after
over 200 striking pilots refused to return to work. "Air India is
escalating the matter rather
than resolving the issue," Tauseef Mukaddam, IPG spokesman said, making it
clear that their agitation will continue.
He said the pilots have sought time for a meeting with
Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh to find an amicable solution.
In a statement tonight, Air India said it has terminated
the services of 25 striking pilots "taking a serious view of the
situation". With this, the total number of pilots who have been dismissed
since the agitation started on Tuesday has gone up to 71.
AI has also written to the Directorate General of Civil
Aviation (DGCA) asking it to cancel the licenses of 11 office bearers of the
IPG whose services have been terminated.
On Friday, Air India also began working on a contingency
plan to salvage its international operations as the agitation by pilots
continued for the fourth day forcing the airline to cancel 12 more flights and
reschedule over a dozen.
The carrier's low cost subsidiary Air India Express also
cancelled five flights in the day during which civil aviation minister Ajit
Singh met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and apprised him about the steps being
taken to resolve the crisis.
"We are working on a plan. This involves operating a
bare minimum number of flights on the international sector. This plan may come
into effect from early next week," a senior Air India official said.
"We have plans to bring in executive and reserve
pilots to operate the flights. We also have plans to wet lease aircraft to operate
on the affected routes."
The airline has stopped bookings on some of its ultra
long-haul routes till May 15, effectively cancelling more than 15 flights per
day to major sectors such as the US, Europe, and some other destinations like
Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Air India also had grounded the bulk of its Boeing 777
fleet. The airline has 17 B-777 aircraft.
"We have almost grounded the fleet of 777s. Some are
stationed in Mumbai and the rest are in Delhi. Some are operating to
destinations like Hong Kong and Shanghai, depending on the availability of
pilots," a senior official in the operations arm of the airline said.
As the stir by over 200 Air India pilots entered the
fourth day, the protestors on Friday approached the government for talks after
the Supreme Court refused to initiate contempt proceedings against them and
instead asked the airline to negotiate.
Faced with a tough-talking AI management, which was backed
by the government, and public anger over cancellations and delays in the holiday
season, the agitating pilots made the first move for talks to end the impasse.
The Indian Pilots Guild (IPG, which is spearheading the
agitation, sought time to hold talks with civil aviation mMinister Ajit Singh,
Guild spokesperson Tauseef Mukaddam said in Mumbai.
On its part, the government also offered to talk to the
pilots but with a rider that they must return to work.
The minister briefed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about
the developments and later appealed to the pilots to resume duty. Though the
minister ruled out invoking the provisions of Essential Services Maintenance
Act (ESMA) on them, he said their strike was illegal.
A Supreme Court bench headed by Justice TS Thakur hearing
a petition filed by Air India said the striking pilots had done nothing which
amounted to contempt and asked the airline to hold talks and sort out
differences with them.
The stir led to the cancellation of 23 international and
domestic flights of Air India and its subsidiary AI Express on Friday, putting
hundreds of passengers to hardship.
AI's contingency plan
The national carrier decided to put in place a contingency
plan from Monday to beef up long-haul operations and started the process of
wet-leasing some aircraft.
Under this, the airline would operate seven flights to the
US via Europe, out of a total of 16 using wide-body aircraft. Executive pilots
would operate the flights, Commercial Director Deepak Brara said in Delhi.
The airline was also considering wet-leasing some
wide-body planes, he said but did not give the exact number of aircraft to be
hired, adding "we would require some aircraft to help us operate 4-5
flights".
Under wet-lease, the lessor provides flight crew with the
leased aircraft. The planes are planned to be leased for a short period,
airline officials said.
Under the plan, Air India would operate flights to New
York JFK and Chicago with one stopover in either Paris or Frankfurt. Terminator
flights to London would operate from Delhi, officials said, but added that all
this were subject to getting time slots at these European airports.
Air India has a wide-body fleet of 20 Boeing 777s, three
Boeing 747s and two Airbus A-330s. It has a total of 80 executive pilots.
The plan to operate seven out of a total of 16 wide-body
flights would continue till normalcy was restored, they said, adding that a
large chunk of the 20 B 777s were grounded in Mumbai and Delhi due to
non-availability of pilots.
Ajit Singh said all unions have to rise above their
"personal interests".
"If they want to talk, they should come to work, and
all issues can be discussed, the high court has declared their strike as
illegal," he said.
The IPG has been refusing to return to work unless the management
takes back the pilots whose services have been terminated and the order
derecognising IPG withdrawn.
The cash-strapped national carrier is losing revenue of Rs.
10-12
crore a day due to the stir, apart from a daily incremental cost of Rs.
3-5
crore, officials said.
The cancelled flights were from Mumbai and Delhi to New
York, New Jersey, Chicago, Toronto, Frankfurt, London, Paris.
The national carrier has already stopped bookings till May
15 on its flights to US, Canada, Europe and Riyadh.
The apex court, while asking the Air India management to
"sort out" the problems with the striking pilots, refused to
entertain its plea for initiating contempt proceedings against IPG for
allegedly obstructing implementation of its order on training of pilots for
Dreamliner aircraft.
The bench said the pilots "have done nothing for
obstruction of justice or to bring disrepute to the court.
Your problem is with them. You sit with them and sort out
the differences. Don't resort to contempt proceedings."
However, it said if the strike is illegal, then the
airline can take action against them.
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