Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh has invited former aviation ministers to help end the Air India deadlock as pilots continued their agitation for the fifth consecutive day on Saturday, forcing the airline management to cancel 16 flights and re-schedule many others.
Sharad Yadav, Shahnawaz Hussain and Rajeev Pratap Rudy are among those who have been sent an SOS by Ajit Singh to negotiate with the protesting pilots.
Singh has asked the agitating pilots to consider the plight of passengers who are the major sufferers in this strike.
Asking why the strike has not been called off after the court’s order, Singh stated that the strike has caused a credibility issue.
Meanwhile, members of the Indian Pilots Guild said they are willing to hold talks without any precondition to resolve the issue.
“The ball is in government’s court. AI management is not giving a clear picture to the government,” says IPG leader Tauseef Muqaddam.
The airline has stopped bookings on some of its ultra long-haul routes till May 15, effectively cancelling more than 15 flights per day on major sectors like the US, Europe, and some other destinations like Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore.
The agitating pilots have also reached out to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, seeking his intervention on demands which are deemed by senior members of the protesting aviator community as “genuine”.
The pilots had said they were open to talks. But the government did not accept the offer, saying there would be no negotiations till the pilots returned to work.
The development comes even as the airline said it is working on a contingency plan to salvage its international operations.
“We are working on a plan. This involves operating a bare minimum number of flights on the international sector. This plan may come into effect from early next week,” the official said.
Air India has also grounded the bulk of its Boeing-777 fleet. The airline has 17 Boeing-777 aircraft.
The airline is losing an estimated Rs 10 crore per day due to the agitation. Maintaining the grounded aircraft would further add to its expenditure.
The airline has sacked 71 pilots in five days since the agitation began on Tuesday and derecognised their union – the Indian Pilots Guild (IPG). It has also asked aviation regulator the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to cancel striking pilots’ flying licenses.
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The standoff between the Air India management and striking pilots had its impact on both Houses of Parliament on Thursday, with members saying the agitation was destroying the national airline and sending wrong signals to the outside world.
The trouble started for the airline on Tuesday when pilots belonging to IPG took mass sick leave protesting the move to provide Boeing-787 Dreamliner conversion training to pilots from the erstwhile Indian Airlines.
The airline has also moved petitions in the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court. The apex court will hear the petition along with special leave petition (SLP) filed earlier by the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), the union of erstwhile Indian Airlines pilots.