IA pilots plan work-to-rule stir from today

IA pilots plan work-to-rule stir from today
ENS ECONOMIC BUREAU

MUMBAI, JAN 4: Fed up with an indifferent management which has failed to meet their pending demands, the Indian Airlines pilots are going on a work-to-rule agitation from tomorrow. The move is expected to hit the loss-making airline's flight schedules which had recently carried record number of passengers due to lower fares than its arch rival Jet Airways.

The airline has already incurred a huge loss in the current fiscal, and the latest pilot's agitation will increase its losses further, fear IA officials.

According to Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), the IA management has failed to act upon their eight demands which include wrong income tax calculations by IA's finance department, loss of license calculations, wage anomaly and arrears, lack of certificates for foreign currency calculations and arbitrary grant of No-objection certificates to the outgoing pilots.

Elaborating, ICPA spokesperson, Capt Paresh Narurkar said the Indian Airlines pilots rely on the airline's finance department to make the correct assessment and deduction of taxes. ``But IA has failed to pay the taxes on time to the government which has led to several pilots being harassed needlessly by the Income tax department. Though the management has given assurances, it has failed to take ant action on the negligent staff of its finance department,'' ICPA added.

``Besides, of late we have noted with concern that the management is printing flight schedules in contraventuion of line pilots' flight duty time limit (FDTL) which are not in the interest of flight safety,'' the ICPA said and advised its members to fly strictly in accordance with FDTL and not to flout safety regulations.

On wages, the ICPA said despite giving an assurance in 1999 that the wage arrears for the period 1990 amd 1996 would be paid to the pilots, the management has failed to take any action on this and is not willing to give any commitment as to the time frame by which they are willing to settle the payment of the arrears.

The airline, which is facing a massive shortage of pilots, is also not issuing no-objection certificates to the pilots who are preferring to work in other airlines. To make matters worse, the airline is whisically granting NOC to a select few pilots to devide the association. IA is also telling other foreign airlines not to hire its pilots ``which amounts to slavery and is in contravention to the constituion right to work,'' the ICPA said.

According to Narurkar, the airline needs privatisation on an immediate basis so as to bring in a partner which can resolve the decade-old problems. ``The airline needs to expand as thousands of passengers are flying with private airlines despite higher fares.. this shows the airline need to get its act together and resolve all the issues immediately to take on the competition,'' he added.