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Air India employees raise privacy, fatigue concern on new room sharing policy
The policy is prevalent at Air India Express and Vistara – this will be the first time it will be introduced at the Tata Group-owned loss-making Air India.
Several employees of Air India have raised privacy and fatigue concerns after the company proposed to introduce new room sharing policy from December 1 for its cabin crew members, reported The Hindu on Wednesday.
In an email to CEO Campbell Wilson and its Chief Human Resource Officer Ravindra Kumar, employees have said the new policy will impact their rest requirements leading to impacts on their health and performance.
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Employees stressed the need for personal space to rest and privacy, especially after ultra-long flight hours and irregular shifts of up to 18 hours. Their representation to the company highlighted that crew members have varying flight schedules, thus requiring different sleep and rest cycles.
Responding to these concerns, an airline spokesperson told The Hindu that there is a need to harmonise the employee policies of Air India and Vistara post-merger. The spokesperson said these policies were part of compensation and benefits announced which are “competitive and benchmarked to industry standards.”
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Arun Kapur, former safety and emergency procedures instructor for cabin crew training at Air India said the new proposed policy is neither safe nor kind. "Different people like to wind down after work in their own way. Someone may like to watch television, another person may want to read,” he explained adding that cabin crew members on the same flight might have different rest requirements.
Air India's new policy
According to the new policy, cabin crew and cabin seniors will be assigned rooms on twin sharing basis. In flight cabin managers and executives, with 8 to 9 years of experience, will continue to be allotted single rooms.
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Sources in the airline told PTI that the allowances for cabin crew of international flights will be increased from USD 75-125 bracket to USD 85-135 bracket. There is no change in the allowance of ₹1,000 per night for the cabin crew of domestic flights.
While the room sharing policy is already prevalent at Air India Express and Vistara, this will be the first time it will be introduced at the Tata Group-owned loss-making Air India. The new policy comes amid a section of employees seeking redressal of human resource issues under the labour law before the Central Labour Commissioner.
(With PTI inputs)
