Pilots win nothing, Air India Losses 150 crores

New Delhi: After 10
days of hard
bargaining, striking Air India (AI)
pilots patched up with the
government on Friday with the former
gaining hardly anything in the process but causing the bleeding national
carrier losses of more than Rs 150
crore and further denting its
reputation. With the pilots calling off
their strike, AI will resume domestic
services from midnight of Friday. The Indian Commercial Pilots
Association (ICPA) - which has as its
members 700 pilots belonging to the
former Indian Airlines - had declared a
strike from the midnight April 26-27. They were joined by another 200-odd
management pilots a day later,
crippling AI's domestic network. The AI management had sacked
seven pilots, suspended seven others
and derecognised the ICPA. So, after the 10-day face-off with the
government, all that the pilots got was
re-recognition of their association and
reinstatement of the sacked and
suspended pilots. The decision to call off the strike hasn't
gone down well with a section of ICPA
pilots and there was a clear split in its
ranks. "We are back to square one. The
government hasn't conceded an inch
and we, on the other hand, have lost
10 days' pay and an assurance of a
salary of 60-hours. What was the point
of doing all this?" a pilot asked. ICPA general secretary Rishabh Kapur
conceded that they hadn't got any
commitment on the allowances ICPA
had demanded. He said implementation of the report
of the justice (Retd) Dharmadhikari
Committee - which is looking into
issues of wage rationalisation and
level mapping - would be shared with
them by November.