Air India pilots are angry over pay cuts⁠— want salaries to be reduced in a graded manner

• The letter dated July 6 from Indian Commercial Pilots’ Association( ICPA) and Indian Pilots’ Guild (IPG) suggested steps that Air India should take in the times of coronavirus.
• The letter said the 10% pay cut across the board treats “unequal people equally.”
• The pilot body also suggested that it is time for the national carrier to look at its employment policies and cut back on the excessive employee strength in the backend departments.

Air India pilot association tells chairman Rajiv Bansal that the national carrier should take cues from private airlines in cost-cutting measures during the coronavirus pandemic.

The letter from the Indian Commercial Pilots’ Association( ICPA) and Indian Pilots’ Guild (IPG) listed various steps that Air India should take at this time when the aviation sector and the company itself is a facing major cash crunch due to the economic slowdown.


“Air India should also be guided by how other players in the aviation sector are battling the adversities of the coronavirus pandemic. We understand that a leading private carrier has an employee strength of 250 in finance and 130 in HR, handling a fleet of 255 aircrafts. This may be contrasted with Air India, which has more than 1600 employees in HR and Finance for a mere 125 aircrafts,” said the letter.

Salary cuts should be steeper with rising pay grades

It further added that the 10% pay cut across the board treats “unequal people equally.” The class IV employees are the ones that are severely impacted by the pay cut than the ones at the top of the ladder, the letter explained.

“While prima facie appearing to be fair, this scheme distributes the financial burden across the various categories of employees in an extremely discriminatory manner amounting to treating unequal people equally,” said the pilots in the letter.

It also suggested that Class IV workers should be kept away from the allowance cut.

The pilot body also recommended that it is time for the national carrier to look at its employment policies and cut back on the excessive employee strength in the backend departments. “Since Air India is in financial distress on account of the pandemic, the employee strength should be brought at par with other market players through common-sense measures like compulsory leave without pay till such time normal operations resume,” it said.

“This is nowhere in line with market standards, and since operations have been scaled back, their workload has reduced drastically. It is prudent for Air India and the MoCA to take cognisance of this excess manpower and trim costs as our aircraft stand under-utilised,” it added.

“If any meaningful cost-saving has to be effected, the financial burden must be fairly distributed between all employees based on their job functions and emoluments,” the letter said.

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