Air India -- completely unionized/Indian Pilot's Unions. (Merged).

[shon7]

Are they following airlines unionized. If so is there a website for the union
Air India
Sahara
Jet Airways
Indian Airlines
Air Deccan
Kingfisher

[shon7]

Are they Ground Workers in Air India a part of a Union?

What about Flight Attendants and Mechanics? I had heard that the employee to Aircraft ration at AI is 500:1. Is this possible?

[rsoman]

Not content with the damge Unions have brought on in the US?

Indian Airlines - Pilots are unionised .But they know how to behave, esp after what happened to their friends in Air India!

Jet - I think (not too sure) some of the ground handling staff/office workers are unionised. But not the pilots or cabin crew.

[4engines]

Air India and Indian Airlines have a pilot's union, Jet Airways pilot's dont have a traditional union, but they do have a welfare society.
Indian Airlines pilot's union is called the Indian Commercial Pilots Association(ICPA), Jet airways welfare society is known as SWEP,
Air India pilots union is called the Indian Pilots Guild.
The web site is www.indianpilotsguild.org (http://www.indianpilotsguild.org) , its the only pilot's union in India to have a website, sections of it are still under construction.

[4engines]

RSOMan,
You seem to be biased against unions.
One possibly cannot blame the meltdown in the US aviation industry on the Pilot's Union, it ammounts to oversimplifying a very complex issue.
Just in case you did not know, Southwest Airlines, the most profitable carrier in the US has a very active Pilot's Union.
Pilot's being unionised has no bearing on the financial performance of an airline.

[4engines]

Most sections of employees in Air India are part of some union, this includes Flight Attendants, Engineers,Ground Supporort etc.
Being a Public Sector Undertaking the employee to aircraft ratio is higher than industry standards, i dont have the exact figures but it it substantially lower than 500 per aircraft.
However lately the management is addressing the issue about overstaffing through schemes such as offering voluntary retirements.
Till 3 years ago the fleet strength of Air India was in the region of 20-30 aircrafts, with the ongoing fleet expansion the employee to aircraft ratio will be further rationalised.
An important point also is that unlike most airlines in India which out source a lot of ground support services and maintanance services,nearly all of the operations of Air India are conducted in house.Air India also provides these services to a host of foreign airlines flying in to India.

[rsoman]

RSOMan,
You seem to be biased against unions.
One possibly cannot blame the meltdown in the US aviation industry on the Pilot's Union, it ammounts to oversimplifying a very complex issue.
Just in case you did not know, Southwest Airlines, the most profitable carrier in the US has a very active Pilot's Union.
Pilot's being unionised has no bearing on the financial performance of an airline.

Agreed regaring over simplification.

BUT

****
Pilot's being unionised has no bearing on the financial performance of an airline
*****

Well - do some more reading on your side and you will find that you are wrong there in quite a few cases!

[4engines]

My friend RSOman,

Flight Operations is just one of the many critical Departments of an Airline Company, i am glad that you think pilot's Union wield this kind of power, but i am sorry i have to burst your bubble, its just not true that Pilots being unionised is the sole reasons for bankruptcy of Airlines.

FED EX, another consistently profitable airline, again Unionised Pilots!!:ok:

[rsoman]

*****
but i am sorry i have to burst your bubble, its just not true that Pilots being unionised is the sole reasons for bankruptcy of Airlines.
******

I never said they are the SOLE reason for bankruptcy, but if you study the airline bankruptcy (or near bankruptcies) of many US majors , you will see that the unresaonable wage settlements (ofcourse for the pilots anything and everything will be reasonable) wrested by the pilots, in many cases threatening or going into strike action and holding the airline to ransom, have in the long run have contributed handsomely to the hastening of bankruptcy. And once the pilots get their way, then every other union will follow suit.

The best thing which happened to Indian aviation in the recent years was the de-recognition of the IPG. And kudos to the judges of the Indian Supreme Court who upheld the de recognition. Atleast we will have no more crazy strikes for even more unreasonable pay hikes in the guise of health concerns!!!

[picollo]

rsoman,
unions are necessary evils. If you do a little bit of research on ALPA(airline pilots association) you will find that it was responsible for many of the safety laws that we have today including flight and duty time limitations.
I agree that the Indian unions have definetly misused some of their power but if you were on this side of the fence and see first hand what it takes actually make it to a major airline in the US , I believe you would understand the necessity of a union.

By the way, If you could get your hands on "flying the line" exceptional read.

[rsoman]

rsoman,
unions are necessary evils. If you do a little bit of research on ALPA(airline pilots association) you will find that it was responsible for many of the safety laws that we have today including flight and duty time limitations.
I agree that the Indian unions have definetly misused some of their power but if you were on this side of the fence and see first hand what it takes actually make it to a major airline in the US , I believe you would understand the necessity of a union.
By the way, If you could get your hands on "flying the line" exceptional read.


Picollo

I defintely agree with that ALPA and other pilot unions have contributed a lot to making skies a lot safer.

By the way it seems "Flying the Line" is out of print for some time? Also doing an Amazon search, I found two editions? Is there a sequel?

[4engines]

Quote posted by RSOman,
The best thing which happened to Indian aviation in the recent years was the de-recognition of the IPG. And kudos to the judges of the Indian Supreme Court who upheld the de recognition. Atleast we will have no more crazy strikes for even more unreasonable pay hikes in the guise of health concerns!!![/quote]


A little background information since i suspect you are pretty ignorant about laws governing unions in india,
firstly, unions derive their legitimacy from the Regional Labour Commissioner (RLC) and not the Management, as on date IPG is still recognised by the RLC as the sole body representing the pilots of Air India. As far as the case about the Air India management derecognizing the IPG, that case is subjudice, so i suggest you please hold your felicitations of the judges till the judgement is out.

Being professional pilots we are required to be responsible for the safe and efficient operation of equipment costing approximately 40 million dollars and more importantly being entrusted with the responsibility of the lives of 200+ people every single day of our jobs, with no margin for error.
So as far as your comment about "unresonable payhikes in the guise of health concerns" goes, i dont think you are qualified enough to sit in judgement about what is resonable/unresonable compensation for pilots.