skytrotter
11th May 2012, 18:10
About 398 unionised pilots of Air India belonging to their international air arm are on strike for the 6th day and the management has sacked more than 70 of them and the numbers are rising every day.
These pilots are on strike citing favouritism and discrimination from their management ,following the airlines merger with Indian Airlines in 2007 .
The management has recently decided to migrate relatively junior pilots belonging to the erstwhile domestic Indian Airlines to the international arm without resolving inter-se seniority issues and thus depriving many co-pilots command upgrade opportunities.
Another interesting fact is that the union that is on strike is controlled by a political party , the NCP ,that effected the blotched airline merger in the first place. This political party is also known for its affiliation with certain rival airlines and has often been accused of sabotaging Air India with detrimental,controversial policy decisions.
Whether this strike has been engineered by the NCP ,by exploiting the sentiments of gullible,genuinely aggrieved ppilots , to disrupt Air India's schedules to tip the market share in the rival airlines' favour is a possibility. This political party also forms a coalition federal government and it is surprising that it has not used its influence with powerful central ministers to resolve the issue with their intervention.
This also gives the corrupt government an opportunity to justify bailing out ailing private carriers by allowing them to add additional capacity by wet leasing aircraft to carry Air India's passengers. Prolonging the strike and sacking pilots will also enable the government to skew the balance of workers in the favour of a rival union and enter into a new wage agreement.
A diabolical plot no doubt , but a distinct possibility.
These pilots are on strike citing favouritism and discrimination from their management ,following the airlines merger with Indian Airlines in 2007 .
The management has recently decided to migrate relatively junior pilots belonging to the erstwhile domestic Indian Airlines to the international arm without resolving inter-se seniority issues and thus depriving many co-pilots command upgrade opportunities.
Another interesting fact is that the union that is on strike is controlled by a political party , the NCP ,that effected the blotched airline merger in the first place. This political party is also known for its affiliation with certain rival airlines and has often been accused of sabotaging Air India with detrimental,controversial policy decisions.
Whether this strike has been engineered by the NCP ,by exploiting the sentiments of gullible,genuinely aggrieved ppilots , to disrupt Air India's schedules to tip the market share in the rival airlines' favour is a possibility. This political party also forms a coalition federal government and it is surprising that it has not used its influence with powerful central ministers to resolve the issue with their intervention.
This also gives the corrupt government an opportunity to justify bailing out ailing private carriers by allowing them to add additional capacity by wet leasing aircraft to carry Air India's passengers. Prolonging the strike and sacking pilots will also enable the government to skew the balance of workers in the favour of a rival union and enter into a new wage agreement.
A diabolical plot no doubt , but a distinct possibility.