Air India pilots threaten to go on strike

Mumbai: Toughening its posture against the deferment of payment of January salary to February 14 by Air India management, a section of its pilots on Monday threatened to go on a flash strike to protest the move.

"We demand that our salaries should be disbursed by 5 pm on February 10, failing which we will go on flash strike," Indian Commercial Pilots Association General Secretary (ICPA) Captain Rishabh Kapoor said.

The management has deferred the salary twice in this month, Kapoor said adding this is not acceptable to pilots.

While ICPA represents pilots of the erstwhile Indian Airlines and claims around 800 non-executive pilots under its umbrella, the Indian Pilots Guild represents the cockpit crew of the erstwhile Air India.

Earlier in the day, citing cash crunch, Air India delayed for the second time payment of salary to its 30,000 employees for January.

The national carrier, which had earlier said the salaries would be disbursed on February 10, now says they will be paid on February 14.

"In supercession of earlier notification on the subject, (salary for January 2011) will be disbursed on February 14 and not on February 10, as advised earlier," the airline said.

The ailing national carrier posted Rs 49.48 crore worth of operating surplus in December and Rs 21.66 crore in November.

Air India employees used to get their salary on the last day of the month but after facing financial crisis the airline management decided to disburse the salary on the 7th of every month. The airline's salary bill is to the tune of Rs 31,000 crore per annum.

ICPA, which had written to Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi last month saying the airline management was "not serious" about addressing their concerns and trying to precipitate industrial action, had sought "urgent intervention" by Ravi at the earliest.

ICPA, in its communication to Ravi, said if there was no response from the government, it could go ahead with serving notices for non-cooperation and other industrial action soon which may affect flights.

Soon after taking over charge last month, Ravi had sought the support of all employees of Air India to restore its lost glory and said the staff and the management should work in coordination to achieve this.