A-I suspends more pilots, seeks IA help

Bhargava added that five retired A-I pilots who are still holding a valid flying licence have also been asked to rejoin on a contract basis to ensure that the international flights are not affected.

Already, more than 50 other pilots have been served with letters for their refusal to operate flights to Singapore, Hong Kong and Kuwait. They would face disciplinary action, he said. As per the A-I contingency plan that has been put in place, A-310 airbus services may be curtailed but operations of Boeing 747-400, 747-300, 747-200 would be carried out with the help of the executive pilots.

‘‘If we fail to accommodate passengers on our flights, we will try and shift them to Indian Airlines or other international carriers,’’ Bhargava said.

Referring to the contentious CAT III landing instruments, the airline spokesperson had said yesterday that Government has installed them in Delhi and IPG has been demanding $35 per hour flying allowance for all pilots irrespective of whether they flew to Delhi or not. He said ‘‘we would like to have a written communication from the Guild that they have no such demand and are willing to go for CAT III training. This is the minimum they can do to prove their point. Payment of one dollar amounts to addition of Rs one crore to the wage bill annually.’’ On IPG writing to Union Health Minister Sushma Swaraj seeking a meeting, he said they should have done it three weeks back. Meanwhile, an Indian Airlines release said all its flights to Singapore from Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore, were operating as per schedule. The airline has decided to shift the night halt for its cockpit as well as cabin crew from Singapore to Bangkok after consultations with the unions concerned, it said. IA circles said that following an A-I request, Indian Airlines operated an additional flight on April 26 on the Delhi-Dubai-Delhi sector to clear A-I’s 142 stranded passengers.

This was besides accomodating passengers of cancelled A-I flights on common routes such as Mumbai-Cochin, Calicut-Sharjah, Mumbai-Delhi, Calicut-Doha, Chennai-singapore, Cochin-Coimbatore and incoming passengers on sectors Bangkok-Kolkata, Bangkok-Mumbai, Bangkok-Guwahati Bangkok-Delhi, Guwahati-Mumbai, Mumbai-Ahmedabad and Mumbai-Kolkata.

Indian Airlines is also scheduled to operate additional flights on the Delhi-Dubai-Delhi sector on April 28 and 30 and Delhi-Abu Dhabi-Muscat-Delhi on April 29 to clear stranded A-I passengers.