The country’s once prosperous national carrier is now probably the most infamous company, for which mismanagement, discontent and conflict have become bywords. Stuck in a quagmire of financial mess and a humongous unpaid workforce, things have just started looking up for Air India (AI), after the Indian Pilots’ Guild (IPG) ended its strike after 60 days on July 4, leading to losses worth `600 crore.
The Delhi high court has now instructed the airline’s union to initiate reconciliation proceedings with the management, which will be settled by the chief labour commissioner. The IPG agitation started after the pilots from the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), the union of the erstwhile Indian Airlines, were sent to Singapore to train on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.
The Asian Age investigates the little known deep-rooted animosity that had developed between the erstwhile Indian Airlines (IA) and AI pilots after the merger in 2007.
For years, the ICPA had watched Air India hog all the limelight when it entered the Indian aviation scene. The fact that the merged entity was named Air India was the final straw, and brought forth a feeling of neglect, leading to what is today one of the most crucial issues on the country’s aviation scene. After the merger, former IA executives constituted the top echelons of the airline management. Hence, IPG pilots and other AI unions allege step-motherly treatment. According to the deal that was struck at that time, former IA bosses were allowed to head the merged entity, as “compensation” for naming the company Air India, which later famously was called as ‘Logo tumhara, log hamare’ (your logo, our people).
“After the merged entity was named Air India, Indian Airlines staffers felt a loss of identity. It is because flying international was already considered more ‘stylish’ then and the naming of the new company was the last nail in their coffin,” said George Abraham, general secretary of the Aviation Industry Employees Guild (AIEG).

Superiority complex?
The IPG claims that the current top management is resorting to “IA chauvinism” by sidelining its legitimate demands. A high-ranking AI official admitted this to The Asian Age, while also slamming the IPG for their untimely decision to strike. “The IPG does have legitimate demands but they have made a terrible mistake by striking at a time when the airline was on the verge of a turnaround. However, it is a fact that the current top bosses are protecting their own people,” said the official. An instance in this regard, is the strike by the ICPA in 2011, when the management immediately acceded to the pilots’ demand within 10 days and allowed a salary hike of $2,000 per month. However, the IPG’s strike in May this year met with an iron-fist response, with the union being de-recognised altogether.
Surprisingly, the two unions shared a harmonious relationship both before and a few years after the merger. Mr Abraham said that the ICPA, IPG along with the Jet Airways pilots union, the Society for Welfare of Indian Pilots had got themselves affiliated to the International Federation of Airline Pilots Association. “They formed the Airline Pilots Association of India by coming together for a cause. It was the failure of the management to evolve a well-defined HR policy, addressing policy issues and timely redressal of the pilot’s grievances that led to the fallout,” said Mr Abraham.

Promotion and progression policy
The only known and reported reason behind the strike has been the IPG’s protest against sending members of the ICPA for training on the “simulator” of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. However, there were other issues, which developed when the authorities failed to integrate HR policy, leading to former IA officers and pilots superseding their AI counterparts. Discontent among IPG members grew when IA pilots continued to receive their time-bound promotions after four to five years, where a co-pilot becomes a captain or a commander. A senior IPG member explained that in AI, a co-pilot or a first officer only becomes a commander after putting in nine years of service and the promotions are performance based.
“After the merger, an ICPA pilot, who has worked for not more than five years, supersedes me to become a commander, although I have put in more than eight years and I am a senior in terms of years of service and flight hours,” said a senior pilot. He added, “There was no systematic integration of HR policies and it is commonly accepted even amongst former IA personnel that the merger was haphazard.”
However, an erstwhile IA pilot had a different perspective about the issue. “In AI, it was a common practice for the senior pilots to stall their co-pilots’ promotion to the commander level for eight to nine years at a stretch. This allowed the senior pilots to become commanders, which was done so that they could get an extension of the retirement age from 58 to 60,” he said.
Speaking about the Dreamliner aircraft issue, a pilot from the IPG said that they are not against ICPA pilots being trained on Boeings. “Training Airbus pilots on Boeing planes requires more money, and ICPA pilots are being sent to Singapore, despite us having the same simulator lying unused at the AI’s office,” the pilot said. However, ICPA pilot countered this stance by saying that the IPG had violated the terms of an agreement, which they signed with the management about the B787 training. “The IPG had violated a tripartite agreement it had signed with the management and ICPA, which clearly stated that pilots from the unions will be trained on the Boeing 787 on a 1:1 ratio basis. Why did they have to strike when they themselves signed the agreement? This shows they didn’t want us to enter their domain of international flying,” the pilot said.