Ia Gets Tough With Engineers

Indian Airlines (IA) chairman and managing director P C Sen held a meeting with the airlines top brass and the regional engineering and administrative chiefs to review the situation arising out the go-slow by IA engineers.

IA sources said the airline will formulate and implement a contingency plan in light of the agitation. The plan, which will be put into place within 48 hours, can be maintained for up to 2 months and will involve curtailment of certain flights and redeployment of equipment.

The IA management has told the government and the engineers union that it will not reopen the agreements signed with various unions and associations on the basis of productivity-linked schemes, lest this have a cascading effect. It also reiterated that it will not discuss issues with unions under threat or pressure of any kind. The meeting also reviewed flight operations and decided to adopt a wait-and-watch approach. Sources said the fact that flights have been normal in the last one or two days after the IA brass took a tough stand on the issue is an indicator that the engineers were agitating without admitting that this was the case.

 

There was no other explanation for the sudden normalcy after the rampant delays, sources said.

Airline sources said flight delays of 2-3 per cent on account of engineering problems was normal, but the airline had been experiencing flight delays of 8.5 per cent, which could only be attributed to unless the engineers delaying tactics.

IA officials said while it was difficult to assess the loss suffered by the airline on this count alone, it was major dent on the airlines image. This was compounded by the continuing efficiency of Jet Airways, its main competitor.