Strike grounds 78 Air India flights

The ongoing strike by pilots forced Air India to cancel around 78 flights on Thursday. This comes to over 25 per cent of the scheduled flights in a day. Close to 57 flights were cancelled yesterday, the first day of the strike.

The executive pilots, who were flying till yesterday, joined the strike on Thursday, increasing the problems of passengers. The management has terminated the services of two executive pilots.

The management has, meanwhile, decided to stop fresh bookings on domestic flights for the next five days.

As many as 800 members of the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), a union of the erstwhile Indian Airlines pilots, are on strike from Wednesday. The pilots, who mostly fly on domestic and short-haul international routes, are demanding wage parity with Air India colleagues, who fly long-haul international routes.

Industry sources say the cancellations have led to an average 40 per cent increase in fares in competing airlines. “The fares have risen by 40 per cent. Spot fares have seen the steepest increase,” said Sabina Chopra, co-founder, Yatra.com, an online travel portal. She said in sectors such as Delhi-Mumbai, spot fares have risen to Rs 10,000 from Rs 5,000-6,000. Early morning tickets for Friday on the Delhi-Mumbai route were being sold for Rs 15,000 to Rs 18,000.

The Delhi High Court has yesterday asked the pilots to join work. The management on Thursday asked the court to issue a contempt notice against the pilots for not joining work. Meanwhile the pilots have decided to reply to the contempt notice.

“I and the president of our union will appear in the Delhi High Court to reply to the contempt notice issued by the court. We have still not taken any decision on challenging the high court order and are examining legal options,” said ICPA General Secreratry Rishab Kapur.

The management, on its part, said it had got feelers from the pilots for talks. The pilots denied this. The Chief Labour Commissioner tried to bring the two sides to the negotiation table. But the management refused, saying the union was not recognised and had flouted the high court order. The pilots demanded restoration of recognition to the union and said the six sacked pilots should be taken back before talks could start.

Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi said there could not be any negotiations until the pilots called off the strike.

The pilots said they were looking at legal options. “We will continue with our agitation. We will not negotiate until the sacked pilots are taken back,” said a union representative.

The pilots said around 200 flights were cancelled as 800 pilots and 150 executive pilots had joined the strike.

The pilots are demanding a fixed salary, removal of Air India Chief Arvind Jadhav and a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry into the alleged mismanagement of the airline. Taking a stern view of the strike, the management has sacked six ICPA leaders, including President A S Bhinder and General Secretary Rishabh Kapur, derecognised the union and sealed the union’s offices across the country.