New Delhi: The government may be undecided on whether cash-strapped Air India should go ahead with acquiring the Boeing 787 Dreamliners but an intense battle has already broken out within the airline over who would fly this plane! Pilots of the erstwhile Indian Airlines and Air India, who till now were bitterly divided on the issue of pay parity, are now engaged in an all out war over flying the Dreamliner.
AI pilots have been staking claim to fly the 787s on the basis of an agreement they claim to have struck with the management in the past. But IA pilots are also staking claim to be trained for this new aircraft. Unlike AI pilots who get fixed pay for 80 hours, their IA counterparts get paid only for actual number of hours flown. According to sources, AI would require 80 to 100 pilots to fly the 27 Dreamliners ordered by it. After a delay of over two years, Boeing says their delivery may begin from December.
A senior IA commander said: "From average flying of 75 hours a month some time back, our actual flying is down to about 52 hours now. So we have already taken a one-third pay cut. Being sent to the 787 means some of us would get to fly the new aircraft while the remaining will get their flying hours increased . Sending pilots from AI's Boeing 777 fleet to the 787 would create a shortage for that plane and possibly require hiring of expats for the B-777 s. Despite this ground reality, there's an attempt to keep us out of that plane as the Dreamliners were ordered by erstwhile AI in premerger days."
06/09/11 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India
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