Changes in contract within boundaries of law: Air India management

Airline is framing policies for all employees which wasn't the case earlier and that requires superseding of previous policies, said airline's chief human resources officer Suresh Dutt Tripathi

With the pilots refusing to budge, Air India management reached out to employees once again on Monday to explain the offer and clarify doubts.

"Changes have been introduced to have a performance & merit-based culture as would be the ask of any world-class & professionally run airline," the airline's chief human resources officer Suresh Dutt Tripathi said in a staff email.

"We are a TATA organisation and any change that has been introduced in the contract is done in the boundaries of law. Anyone telling you otherwise that the contract doesn’t abide by the law is factually incorrect and is misleading," Tripathi said.

"Our flying allowance rates are one of the highest in the Indian industry, with even higher amounts beyond 40 hours," Tripathi said.

According to him the airline is framing policies for all employees which wasn't the case earlier and that requires superseding of previous policies. "Different service rules existed at Air India and were not harmonised completely with the erstwhile merger. Our attempt has been to bridge this gap and make common policies and rules for different sections of employees," Tripathi said.

He said the practice of garden leave which is sought to be introduced is a standard industry practice to protect any sort of data leakage