Striking AI pilots get backing of Indian Pilots Guild, ICPA

The agitating executive pilots of Air India today received a boost with the unionised section of their colleagues supporting them, holding the Air India management responsible for its present financial mess.

Apart from the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) which has already expressed its support to the striking pilots, the Indian Pilots Guild, the non-executive pilots union of Air India, also lent its muscle to the ongoing agitation.

"The nation, as the owner of this airline, needs to ask the government why the people who are responsible for the current financial mess are not brought to book and held accountable," ICPA's General Secretary Captain R S Otal told reporters here.

The executive pilots are protesting against the management's decision to implement an up to 50 per cent cut in their productivity-linked incentives (PLIs) as a part of its turnaround plan.

Otal said the cut in PLI amounted to a pilot getting paid for only three months of work in a year.

"Even that salary has been deferred without any definitive pay-out date," he said.