IA pilots want pay parity with AI

New Delhi: After brand Indian Airlines, its flight code IC is all set to fly into sunset. From Saturday (January 29), Air India's AI will replace IC for all domestic and international flights mounted by the erstwhile IA as part of the merger. But the transition is unlikely to be a smooth one - like the IA-AI merger - with pilots of the erstwhile IA are threatening to take "any action" unless their salaries are matched with the pilots of Air India by that date.
On Monday, the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) (that represents erstwhile IA pilots) wrote a letter to Arvind Jadhav, CMD of the merged entity, seeking pay parity and payment of dues from the merger date, which happened over three years ago. These pilots allege that their counterparts in Air India, AI Express and the expats serving the airline get almost 30-50% more salaries than them.
"All erstwhile IA pilots are incurring heavy financial losses. The top AI management has deceived IA pilots by violating the memorandum of settlement of November 30, 2009 and by not keeping its promises to resolve pay parity issue by various deadlines. Since both the airlines are merged, salary and allowanced of all pilots of erstwhile IA and AI should be paid by one single agreement of AI without any discrimination," says the letter sent to Jadhav.
While pilots say that at least four deadlines have lapsed without the issue of pay parity being resolved, they have now set their own deadline: January 29 when IC code sign is replaced by AI.
24/01/11 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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Categories: Air India - International Jan 2011, Air India Domestic Jan 2011, Air India Jan 2011