1. Air India pilots not paid for the last 5 months. Yet they continue to operate flights out of concern for the passengers and goodwill towards the company.
So where's this concern for the passengers and goodwill towards the company gone now? Not paid for the last 5 months? The pilots themselves are responsible for that situation as well. Their union should have raised the issue with the management and should've taken a firm stand back then when the first month's salary was missed. That way the pilots send a strong message to the management, No Salary=No Work. But they still continued work, not because of their concern for pax & goodwill towards the company, but because they didn't have elsewhere to go. Not comfortable with the way things are in NACIL? Go switch to some other company then! And that should not be a problem when you say that "Air India pilots are highly trained and experienced.".
And do you mean to say that only the erstwhile AI pilots were not paid for the past 5 months whereas the erstwhile IC guys were paid on time?
2. Rather than appreciate this gesture of the employees, the management goes ahead and takes arbitrary decisions granting special benefits to the pilots of Indian Airlines at the expense of the pilots of Air India.
Example 1: Even though the company has been making losses and is unable to pay salaries to 30000 odd employees, in November 2011, the management give a salary raise (1lakh to 1.5 lakhs per pilot per month) to the 800 odd pilots of Indian Airlines. This proves the bias of the AI management towards the pilots of Indian Airlines.
Example 2: Co-Pilots of Indian Airlines are promoted to Commander’s grade in 6 years. Co-pilots of Air India are promoted to Commander’s grade in 10 years.
Please elaborate the point that you make when you say "at the expense of the pilots of Air India". This airline doesn't belong to the erstwhile AI pilots! An erstwhile Air India pilot is paid more compared to an erstwhile IC pilot of the same ranks. Moreover nowhere in your post did you speak of the dispute over who gets trained on the 787s, which is one of the major issues haunting your union and one of the prime reasons for the ongoing strike. Trying to mislead people here on pprune?
3. Deeply distressed by this attitude of the management, the pilots raise their issues with the management, demanding fair treatment and equal opportunity on par with the pilots of Indian Airlines. The management refuses to even hear the concerns of the Air India pilots.
The management asked you to resume work and end the strike first. The strike itself was illegal. But it is the false ego of the erstwhile AI pilots that is the main culprit here. The management taking a tough stand against the striking pilots for the first time and sacking them is what came as a surprise to these pilots.
4. Nonpayment of salaries combined with this discriminatory treatment causes severe mental stress in the minds of the pilots. They are too mentally disturbed, and therefore not in the right frame of mind to operate flights. Keeping in mind the safety of passengers, they inform the company that they are unable to operate flights due to this mental stress.
5. To reiterate, the pilots are not on strike, they are simply not in the right frame of mind to safely operate a flight.
Calling in sick for work is a privilege given to the pilots which was used in a wrong way by the striking pilots. And don't give me that crap about not being in the right frame of mind to safely operate a flight. You never are. We all know about the incidents (that could have ended in disasters) that have occurred in the past, that were never made public.
Never knew there were so many cinderellas working for the erstwhile AI.
6. Within 12 hours of the pilot’s refusal to operate flights the management issues termination letters to the pilots, without even giving them an opportunity to explain their grievances and even without ascertaining the nature of their illness.
Rightly done by the management when the strike itself was illegal. An attempt was made by the management by sending doctors to your place to ascertain the nature of your illness and we all know what were the findings of the medical team.
Your allegations are
crap.
The Government negotiates with banned outfits and terrorist organization, but the minister refuses to talk to pilots of Air India, who have worked in the past even without getting salaries?
Successful negotiations between the union and the management has happened in the past. Just because this time around the management has taken a firm stance against the striking pilots and refuses to bow down (which came as a surprise to the striking pilots), they start comparisions with banned outfits and terrosrist organizations? Wasn't the strike declared illegal by the Indain court of law? Breaking the law and holding the country to ransom for the past one month makes them no less than terrorists.
By not talking to the pilots the agitation has prolonged for 32 days, the private airlines like Jet Airways and Emirates, are benefitting. Therefore the minister’s stubborn stance of not talking has caused losses to the national airline, while benefitting private airlines. Have the private airlines bribed the minister to prolong the agitation and keep Air India grounded so that they benefit as a result?
Let's look at it from a different perspective here. It is the ego of the striking pilots (moreover the strike is illegal) that caused losses to our national airline (I am surprised you referred to it as National Airline for the first time rather than "Air India" alone. BTW nowhere in your post did you referred to it as NACIL.)
You talk of bribes just because your demands are not met. Nowhere in your post did you mention the issue surrounding the 787s, which is one of the reasons for the strike. Are you trying to cover up the real issue and mislead others by mentioning stuffs like bribing etc?
Air India pilots are highly trained and experienced. Air India has spent close to Rs. 1 Crore to train each pilot. Now the minister wants to sack these highly experienced and highly trained 100 pilots. Air India has spent close to 100 crores to train these pilots. By sacking these pilots, Air India stands to lose 100 crores. How can the minister be allowed to waste public money is such an arbitrary manner?
So please elaborate what does "highly trained" and "experienced" mean according to you? What "high" training did AI pilots receive that you think others industry-wide do not receive, and thus makes them better pilots than the others? And does all the pilots of Air India have 10k+ hours (if that is what you meant by "experienced") of experience when they are hired? That's the bubble you live in and that's where the problem lies. These pilots think that just because 1 crore was spent behind their training, they are eligible for a lifetime employment with the airline and thus they can do whatever they want (doesn't matter if it's illegal) even if it causes a loss to the airline which is 200-300 times more than what was spent on their training. And just because their jobs are at stake, they call it a waste of public money by the minister, to mislead the public and save their a$$. These pilots are the ones who are responsible for the waste of public money.
The minister proposes to hire 100 new pilots. The cost of training these 100 pilots is 100 crores (Rs. 1 crore per pilot). Who is accountable for this wasteful expenditure?
Better spend 100 crores on fresh pilots than risk a loss of thousands of crores in strikes that can be faced in the future as well if all the sacked pilots are taken back. And moreover it's a waste of public money not yours and the public has no issues with this expenditure because they are backing the minister. So why do you have a problem with that?
The present agitation has resulted in losses of 300 crores. However in the last 5 years, Air India has incurred losses of ONE LAKH CRORES. The officials responsible for these losses are the bureaucrats of the civil aviation ministry, the bureaucrats who are deputed to Air India as CMDs and the management of Air India. Till date none of these officials have been held accountable for their decisions which have resulted in these losses. The minister is blaming the pilots for the loss of 300 crores but he says nothing about the bureaucrats who have caused the ONE LAKH Crore Loss to Air India!
The merger itself was a disaster. I wonder why didn't you guys strike against the merger so strongly back then? Why was the union so scared to raise their voice against PP back then when the merger was planned?
I have no in-depth knowledge about the merger process but is it possible to de-merge NACIL into AI and IC again as it was back in those days? What problems do you think will be encountered during such a de-merger?