AI pilots say no to participating in bid for airline

Air India’s pilots have decided not to participate in the bid for the state-owned airline till the “disproportionate 70 per cent pay-cut for pilots vis-à-vis Air India’s top management officials (10 per cent) is addressed.”

In a joint letter to all pilots, the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) and the Indian Pilots Guild (IPG) have said there is no clarity on the payment of the illegally withheld 25 per cent arrears due to the pilots even as the deadline of December 14 for submission of bids for Air India approaches. ICPA represents pilots from the erstwhile Indian Airlines, and IPG represents pilots from the erstwhile Air India.

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The joint letter points out that while other major airlines in India have revised the pay-cuts for their pilots, Air India has not done so yet.

“We would like to once again reiterate not to take any part in the process of employee bids in the strategic sale initiated by the top management till further communication from us,” the joint letter states.

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A few days back, in a letter Meenakshi Mallik, Commercial Director, Air India, had said that in order to acquire this 51 per cent of the company, “each of us will have to make a financial contribution towards the total corpus. Due to the support we will receive from our financial partner, while I anticipate that each of us will have to make a contribution of no more (than) ₹1 lakh, to bid for the company, this is a detail which I will be better placed to convey to you all once we have passed the initial stage of the EoI. Until we cross Stage 1 (EOI Stage), no monies are needed to be collected from the employees.” Her letter had added that after Stage 1 was successfully completed the bid would be planned in such a way that no single employee will have to take on a financial risk or contribute more than ₹1 lakh.