Air India is almost bankrupt, has not paid employees for months, airport authorities and oil companies, the Civil Aviation Minister, Mr Ajit Singh, said today.

Stating that the Government is ready to talk to pilots, he said, however, discussions and disruptions cannot take place simultaneously.

Air India flights continued to be affected. Sources say between yesterday night and this morning, two flights from Delhi and one from Mumbai were cancelled.

The flights cancelled include Delhi-Singapore and Delhi-JFK (New York). From Mumbai, the flight to Newark was affected.

Airline may move court against pilots

“The management is mulling the option of approaching court against the pilots’ agitation,” airline sources said.

The Air India passengers, who are suffering due to the ongoing agitation, had heated exchanges with the airline staff in Delhi alleging that they were neither cooperating nor providing any information about their flight or alternative flights.

Terming the agitation by the pilots as “illegal”, Mr Ajit Singh said the pilots should consider what the result of their action would be.

“The Government is trying to bail out and giving lot of money. But part of that bailout is with (strings) that they have to perform. For the last three months Air India was doing better. Now with this action, they should consider what the result would be,” he said.

“It is an illegal strike because every employee under rules is allowed to go on strike. They have... they give notice first, they should talk also. They should know Dharmadhikari report has looked at all these problems. Indian Airlines pilots, Air India pilots. The difference, the progression and those discussions before implementing we will discuss with them. Because without cooperation it would not work,” he said.

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