Monday, November 30, 2015

Air India mulls Rs 1cr bond for new pilots to prevent poaching

New Delhi:  In an unprecedented move to protect its pilots from being poached by other airlines, Air India is planning to make its new entrants sign a bond of up to Rs 1 crore. New pilots joining the airline will have to pay this amount if they quit before a certain period during which AI has not recovered the cost of training incurred on them.

An airline can spend anywhere up to Rs 30 lakh to train a pilot. AI has seen an exodus of pilots in recent times, with a leading Indian low cost carrier (LCC) alone taking about 50 of its highly-trained pilots in last one year.

AI's new chief Ashwani Lohani is simultaneously working on a twin-pronged strategy — address the root cause of why pilots are leaving in droves by promising to implement pay parity between pilots of erstwhile Indian Airlines and erstwhile AI by mid-December. This has been a long-pending demand and a bone of serious contention among IA pilots. Once pay parity is in place this year, Lohani says the airline's interests will be protected by introducing the bond of up to Rs 1 crore for new entrant pilots.
30/11/15 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India
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