Pilots sore over Jet’s attitude

Chennai: Jet Airways pilots’ union, National Aviators’ Guild (NAG), which has served notice for a strike from September 7, is accusing the top management, comprising expats, of being ‘anti- Indian pilots’.
Pointing his fingers at the recruitment of expat pilots for salaries at least 60 per cent more than that of their Indian counterparts, despite the recession, a pilot told Express: “The management refuses to talk to us though we are a registered trade union with over 600 of the 750 pilots employed by Jet Airways as our members.” He said most of the major airlines across the world, including Lufthansa, British Airways, Singapore Airlines, Air India and Indian Airlines, have unions with pilots as members.” The top honchos, all of them expats, who are refusing to recognise the welfare body of the pilots, had brought down the allowances of Indian pilots, besides penalising them for small mistakes by cutting their efficiency bonus, some pilots say. “Expat pilots are protected against all these anomalies. We being in India, want to be treated as first class citizens,” Capt Sam Thomas said.
Accusing the management of forcing three chief pilots on the board to resign, some pilots said: “Capt Vaidya, the deputy chief pilot-training, Capt Rajesh Narang and Capt Gurunani resigned five months ago, owing to bad treatment from the expat management. In his resignation letter, Capt Vaidya had reportedly written that ‘it was below his dignity to work under the VP-Operations of Jet Airways.’” The flight and flight duty timings thrust upon the Indian pilots were also not in accordance with settled international norms or with the Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) circulars issued by the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) from time to time, they alleged.
29/08/09 Mamta Todi/ExpressBuzz

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

Categories: Jet Airways Aug 2009