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AI Airbus pilots’ body writes to minister Puri for pay as per industry standards
In its letter to minister Hardeep Puri, Indian Commercial Pilots Association said they faced the brunt of unjust pay cuts with unilateral reductions of around 58% from April 2020 and 55% from October 2020
Air India Airbus pilots’ union, Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), on Tuesday requested civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri to intervene in the matter of their salary cuts and ask the national carrier to reinstate their allowances and pay them according to the industry standards.
The pilots said that they faced the brunt of unjust pay cuts of around 58% from April 2020 and 55% from October 2020. They asked the airline to pay them their full salary as they have been the first and constant ones to serve the nation throughout the pandemic when they operated repatriation flights during the peak of Covid-19.
“By taking away the fixed pay, which is the industry norm, pilots infected with this deadly virus could not operate flights and earn their rightful livelihood similar to other pilots. It is unfair to deny these pilots their monthly flying allowance despite them being available to the company and remaining unutilised due to varied reasons lain alongside the pandemic,” ICPA said.
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The pilots also questioned the airline on amending international layover allowances to government rates instead of referring to the aviation industry standards for allowances. A member pilot said,“The international layover allowance should be paid at par with industry-standard or rather, the Ministry of civil aviation (MoCA) should treat us at par with other public sector undertakings while considering any pay cut from March 2020.”
The ICPA said that while the Indian aviation industry is set on the road to recovery, and all private airlines have scaled back the severity measures by a vast margin, denying wages and allowances to the pilots of Air India, Air India Express and Alliance Air defies a rational justification.
The letter written to Puri read, “...We have long lost hope that our management will ever stand by us or fulfil its responsibilities to Air India and its pilots. We request you to kindly intervene to restore our rightful wages and allowances in line with current Industry practices and standards..”
Air India did not comment on the matter.
