AI sacks 200 cabin crew, refuses to withdraw resignations of 50 pilots

National carrier, Air India has terminated 200 of its cabin crew, and has refused to accept the withdrawal of resignations of 50 pilots. These cabin crew were recently

National carrier, Air India has terminated 200 of its cabin crew, and has refused to accept the withdrawal of resignations of 50 pilots. These cabin crew were recently inducted in the airline on a contractual basis.

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As on April 2020, the national carrier had around 4,000 cabin crew and around 1,800 pilots.

However, the Air India spokesperson refused to comment on the issue. “These are internal issues on which we won’t like to make any comment,” he said.

Airline sources said the 50 pilots had resigned as they had secured a job in private airlines. However, due to lockdown and the current pandemic situation, private airlines did not hire them. Hence, they have put forth their request of wanting to return to Air India.

The airline, however, refused to withdraw their resignations and asked them to continue serving their notice period.

Top Air India sources said the decision was taken before the management and ministry of civil aviation (MoCA) officials met the airline pilots on July 8.

A senior airline pilot said, “We knew about this step by the airline, hence we had written to them and even discussed in the meeting that they should not lay off only the frontline warriors, but deal with all employees, across all the departments equally.”

HT had reported that pilots affiliated to two unions (Indian Commercial Pilot Guild and Indian Pilots Guild) representing the narrow and wide-body aircraft, after writing a letter to their chairman Rajiv Bansal on Monday, had asked the management to give percentage cut on gross salary as per individual’s income and implement leave without pay (LWP) for all the employees of the airline on monthly basis.

The pilots, in the meeting on July 8, had told the management and MoCA to clear their long-pending 25% dues immediately and allow them to quit Air India with immediate effect in case they fail to implement the LWP for employees.

A senior airline official said lay-offs were bound to happen due to the current situation. “The letter from pilots has set things into motion. Otherwise, the airline management was contemplating since March. The appointing authority [heads of the departments] have failed to handle the situation and stand for the employees who are being asked to leave,” the official added.

“Since only a few flights are operating due to Covid-19 pandemic making the situation worse, the management should study the non-operating and operating departments and should reduce the workforce accordingly, since its getting difficult for the airline to function as there is no money to run Air India,” said a retired airline official.