Seems to me, that answer to that question is yes in many cases. I will try to present my view on what he has written.
*1)Artificially Created Pilot Shortage*: During the tenure of Mr V.Thulasidas as the CMD, brand new aircraft worth billions of dollars, both Boeing777s & 737s were kept parked on the ground for months due to an acute shortage of Pilots (Captains)- resulting in hundreds of crores of losses
every month. This in spite of having hundreds of qualified Indian Co-pilots who could have been promoted to fill vacancies of Captains but were not. Who was responsible for the stoppage of training for these co-pilots preventing their promotions - thus resulting in the free hand given to officials in Air India, DGCA & the Ministry of Civil Aviation to give the go ahead to recruit Expatriates?
Here qualified Indian co-pilots mean, pilots available with Air India who have been flying from the right seat and have an ALTP (At least 1500 hrs, legal minimum, flight time, and may be few thousand company minimum). 150 hrs pilots cannot be captains of an airliner in any country I am aware of, specifically not in India. Minimum legal flight time required for CPL in India is 200 hrs. I don't understand what to make out of 150 hrs claim, put in by so many of posters here.
It is only natural to be a bit intolerant if one's 'job' / 'chances of promotion' / 'chances of job' is taken away by an Expat. I am not sure if it can be described as xenophobic. Nevertheless this part of the post only refers to AI's possible short sightedness, miss-management which lead to having a shortage of trained captains. It also indicates that there may be some corruption involving recruiting agencies, AI and/or Ministry Officials.
*2)Preferential Treatment of Foreigners*: How is it today that the cash strapped airline can pay foreign pilots ( some 180 + in number) their full
salaries on time and not retrench even a single one even though it claims its own national pilots are "underutilized" and the company has not been paying 31000 Indian employees their full salaries since August ?
Expats are paid as per the demand-supply situation. It turns out that expats get paid more than the Indian counterpart. Part of this owes to demand-supply situation (actual/apparent), and part to contractual nature of engagement. Arguing against preferential treatment, or pointing out that preferential treatment may be because of corruption/malpractice/mismanagement cannot be termed xenophobic either.
*All this, inspite of the fact that all foreign pilots are junior to Indians in seniority !* ( I have nothing PERSONAL against any expat and some of the ones I have flown with are not only good professionals but also good human beings. The point I am making is one of home grown discrimination in my own country )
In an organisation where seniority is the only metric for promotion, its really frustrating that some arrangement may exist to bypass that metric. After all it doesn't pay to be a good professional in Air India. It is easy to read from the parenthesis that writer is not xenophobic at all. He is pointing out to discrimination extended to him or his class in his own homeland.
Why are expat pilots given preferential treatment over Indians even at the cost of safety - by allowing them to be certified by foreign medical boards with medical standards that are far lower than those prescribed by the
Indian DGCA for Indian pilots? There are foreigners flying in Air India who would have failed even Air India's own company pre employment medical tests.
This question becomes interesting, because of the word 'safety'. Here only aspect of safety being addressed is physical fitness. In India physical fitness is ascertained by Air Force Medical boards. I won't say they are strict. I will say they are unreasonable, you really can't reason them. If the machinery in India perceives that a ATPL cannot be issued without these physicals, then none should be allowed to exercise the same privileges. In case they think that ATPL can be issued without these physicals then its a blatant discrimination against Indian pilots, well by their own government. After all a pilots right to livelihood is closely attached to his getting a Fit to fly endorsement on these physicals. Such a discrimination should not be taken lightly.
*Since when have foreigners become more important in a Government run company ?*
The key point is already in bold.
[QUOTE]"a B777 captain who I know personally, joined AI without a single hour as PIC ,fudged his log book, proudly "created" a few hundred hours extra prior to joining and got a rubber seal made to certify his logbook"/QUOTE]
Desperate circumstances require desperate measures.
*3)Massive Tax Breaks Expats are paid their salaries through their
placement firms in offshore destinations. Thus hundreds of crores worth of
income tax is denied to the Indian exchequer. Ironically the CMD and his
Minister want a bailout to save these very jobs !!
Why should the taxpayer save such jobs? At least I cannot come to any answer.
So all this talk of xenophobia seems quiet baseless. Unless of course if the posters happen to know jetstreams in person and have found him xenopobic.