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New Delhi: Air India
Thursday moved the Supreme Court to force the striking pilots back
to work as their agitation dragged on for the third day affecting
the carrier's operation and rocking both houses of parliament with
members saying the protest action is destroying the national
airline and sending wrong signals to the world outside.
The airline filed a criminal contempt against the agitating pilots
blaming them for obstructing the implementation of an earlier
order of the apex court allowing training of pilots of the
erstwhile Indian Airlines on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
The airline also filed a contempt of court petition in the Delhi
High Court against the pilots who were restrained by the court
Wednesday not to go on a strike.
The agitation forced the management to cancel eight more
international flights, stop bookings on some major long-haul
routes for the next five days and sack nine more pilots.
"We had to cancel eight international flights from Delhi and
Mumbai. Rest all international flights are operating per
schedule," a senior Air India official told IANS in New Delhi.
Trouble started for the airline when pilots belonging to IPG, of
pre-merger Air India pilots, had gone on mass 'sick' leave
protesting the move by the airline to provide Boeing-787
Dreamliner training to pilots from the erstwhile Indian Airlines.
The flights to and from the national capital to various
international destinations like Chicago, Toronto, Shanghai, Paris
and Frankfurt have been affected.
From Mumbai, two international operations to New Jersey and Riyadh
were cancelled.
The flag carrier's international low-cost subsidiary Air India
Express had also to cancel six flight operations to various
destinations from south India to the Middle East.
The airline also announced that it has closed ticket bookings on
ultra long-haul routes till May 15. Closure in ticket bookings
will affect around 15 flights to West-bound destinations such as
the US, Europe, and some other destinations like Shanghai, Hong
Kong and Singapore.
Air India is estimated to be losing Rs.10 crore every day, besides
the loss in passenger goodwill and international image at the
height of the holiday season.
Raising the issue during Zero Hour, Gurudas Dasgupta of the
Communist Party of India said: "Step by step, Air India is being
destroyed. I urge the government to call the pilots and deal with
their demands."
He alleged that instead of protecting Air India, private players
were being patronised. "There should be a concrete revival plan
for Air India," he said.
Basudeb Acharia of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M)
asked Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh, who was present in the
house, to respond to these demands.
In the Rajya Sabha, Ram Chandra Khuntia of the Congress said
frequent strikes were sending wrong signals to the international
community. "Derecognition of the union and suspension of pilots
are not a permanent solution. A long-term settlement of the issue
must be done."
The civil aviation minister earlier regretted the decision to
merge Air India and Indian Airlines. "Their cultures were entirely
different. Air India's way of doing things, Indian Airlines way of
doing things, their pay scales, their promotion policies and their
areas of operation were also entirely different," he told a
television channel.
The IPG has said it is open to talks, but the government has made
it clear that there would be no negotiations till the pilots
returned to work.
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