There is zero public sympathy for this strike and for pilots in general in India with good reason, following recent findings. And there is a complete sense of being fed up with AI and staff attitudes in particular. Ex IC Pilots are not exempt from this sense of being fedup Im afraid.
If management takes a stand on this issue and even brings in fresh expats to replace sacked pilots there will be zero public sympathy for AI pilots. EX IC pilots should realsie that a majority of stajkeholders would rather see AI shut down than bleed everyone else to death as has been happening for 5 years now. In these circumstances making demands on pay is just silly, especially when we dont even know how many of the stirkers are ""pilots"" in the sense that most of the professional world understands the term
By the way this would also be true of the other airlines of India should they take recourse to these silly measures, in the current public mood.
PS Im not management or a journalist, but an indepndent aviation professional with a history on the flight deck, who has worked with AI pilots on their employee buyout bid in the 1990s.