Ten striking pilots who were earlier served a showcause notice by the DGCA on why their licences should not be cancelled, are likely to tell the DGCA that the privilege of exercising their commercial licence is in lieu of the remuneration (sala-ries) that they receive and not for performing public service.
“This is the line of reasoning since public service cannot be used as a stick to beat us with, just because we are working with a national carrier,” said an office-bearer of the now-derecognised Indian Pilots Guild (IPG) on condition of anonymity. The ten office-bearers have already been sacked from Air India along with 61 other pilots.
The notices were earlier issued by the DGCA to ten office-bearers of the IPG after Air India complained to the DGCA. The national carrier had argued that the pilots had started a strike which was illegal as they had not given any formal strike notice in advance to the management. The airline argued that thousands of passengers had been inconvenienced due to the illegal strike of the pilots.
Meanwhile, the strike entered the 13the day on Saturday night.