hey........there jus seems to be too many assumptions and presumptions here......why dont we all jus stick to the basic principles here. First of all i wish to understand what is the "hidden" agenda here of the IPG? Some of us work in countries and companies where there is no option of forming unions forget joining them........employees choose to be part of unions understanding that it is for their protection and benifit. And if a union issues a directive, primarily i would presume it is for the benefit of its members.....now coming back to the entire pallava about how this affects the passengers and the flights and the "poor" gulf labour load and all da jazzz.......frankly lets just keep that issue aside for the moment and deal wit it in another forum.......what we talking about here is the merits of this directive.......if at all is any......As a part of the aviation industry most of us will agree that the SARS issue is something that effects each one us frontline employees directly. As far as i understand AI management has not come up with any directives or protection of its frontline employees against the exposure to this fatal disease. So here we have a cockpit crew union having issued a directive enables them to verify whether any of their cabin crew has flown to singapore in the past ten days and off schedin them if this being the case and replaced.........now did the directive state that if any member of the crew has to flown to singapore at all then they would never fly again with them?????? 10 days is a safe quarantine period that minimises the risks of the rest of the crew of contracting anything...........now what is wrong with that? The cabin crews are multi aircraft qualified and fly to various destinations exposing them to all kinds of passsengers whereas you have cockpit crew members that are single aircraft qualified flying to limited destinations and their primary contact on board the aircraft are not the passengers but the cabin crew. Now what is wrong with the union taking the initiative to protect its members where the management has failed to do so? Sars is not an issue that should be taken lightly just because it has not happened to someone you know.......... it is a worldwide increasing epidemic that should be of paramount concern to anyone working in the travel industry. The fact that this matter with Air India is a now a full blown war between the management and the union totally defeats the purpose of this directive in the first place. What i understand is that in Air India you choose to be a member of the union IPG and if not does not mean that you automatically become a part of the management. The executive pilots who are a part of the management have been asked to become members of the management at the managements discretion when they see it as fit..........in the meantime if you are not a member of either you have no protection anyway.......also understand that the IPG pilot members have not refused to fly at all...........they have jus not been allowed to follow a directive that protects them and thereby been stopped from flyin and further suspended by the management. So now step in the executive (management member) pilots who are required to cover the open slots through no choice of theirs with nothing protecting them merely following the orders of the management..............The final authority on board the aircraft rests with the pilot in command as does the ultimate responsibility should anything go wrong. I personally dont see anything wrong with the pilots making the effort that would minimise the risks of contracting sars amongst its crew members and through the chain of contact also be protecting the "poor" passengers from being exposed from it.
Now does this sound too idealistic to any of you?