E-Paper
Restore our pay cuts if Covid-19 has subsided: Air India pilots to aviation secretary
The email sent to the pilots on Thursday night stated that keeping in mind the improvement in the Covid-19 pandemic situation, a decision was taken by competent authorities to discontinue full board with effect from midnight of 30.09.2021 within India and 11 other countries that included the US and Canada.
Air India Boeing pilots’ union- the Indian Pilots’ Guild (IPG) on Friday, wrote to the new aviation secretary and their former chairman and managing director (CMD) Rajiv Bansal requesting him to restore their pay cuts pointing out that there has been a significant reduction in Covid-19 cases.
They also put forth a request to the authorities to restart the ‘full boards facility’ (three-time meal allowance for pilots in domestic and international layovers) that the company via an email, had earlier announced that it would stop..
The email sent to the pilots on Thursday night stated that keeping in mind the improvement in the Covid-19 pandemic situation, a decision was taken by competent authorities to discontinue full board with effect from midnight of 30.09.2021 within India and 11 other countries that included the US and Canada.
“With the advent of the pandemic, our layover sustenance allowance was drastically cut to approximately one-third of its original sum resulting in a 60–70% cut. Furthermore, our flying allowance was cut by 40%, only in theory, in practice, this cut surmounted to 70-80% due to the significant reduction in the number of flying hours allotted to each pilot,” read the letter.
The pilots reiterated that they operated the Vande Bharat flights and emergency evacuation missions despite their ‘harsh’ pay cuts.
IPG urged Bansal to reverse the full-board cut and also reinstate their wage structure.
“In the interest of the travelling public, we have ensured that to date not a single flight has been disrupted. A large number of our colleagues contracted Covid-19 abroad as a result of operating these flights. Many serious cases led to hospitalization and long term medical grounding but most tragically, a few of our colleagues even lost their lives to the disease. Yet the airline continues to operate with negligible concern for employee welfare,” the pilots said.
