Air India engineers threaten to drag management to court

Carrier recently announced it will absorb 50 odd Air India Express engineers into Air India Engineering Services Ltd

A section of Air India Engineers have threatened to take the airline management to court if it does not reverse its decision to absorb 50 odd Air India Express (AIE) engineers into subsidiary AIESL on the ground that the move would adversely impact their carreer prospects.

Air India Engineering Services Ltd (AIESL) currently has 900 aircraft maintenance engineers (AME) with 500 of them from erstwhile Indian Airlines (narrow-body fleet) and the rest from Air India (wide-body fleet).

The protesting AMEs are from erstwhile Indian Airlines, sources said.

On the other hand, Air India Express has a total of around 105 engineers. Of these 55 are of Air India Express itself and the remaining 50 on deputation from Air India.

"AI management has issued transfer letters to all 55 AMEs of Air India Express, placing their services with the AIESL from September. We are opposed to these transfers as it would have a direct bearing on our career progression," Air India engineering sources told PTI.

They claimed engineers coming from Air India Express, who have been getting early promotions, would get seniority upon transfer thereby adversely affecting the career prospects of AI engineers.

Air India had hived off its engineering and cargo businesses into two separate subsidiaries-- AIESL and Air India Transport Services Limited (AITSL)--in 2013.

"The absorption of these engineers from AIE into the AIESL would further block our promotion avenues. Hence we are > protesting the decision and would soon move Mumbai High Court seeking a stay," they said.

These engineers were initially hired on a temporary basis on the condition that their services will be regularised only after five years and that too depending on the performance. "But throwing rules to the wind their services were made permanent after a year," sources said.