Indian Commercial Pilots’ Association and Pilots’ Guild of India seek appointment with Civil Aviation Minister to review pay cuts of pilots of Air India

The Indian Commercial Pilots’ Association and Pilots Guild of India have sought an urgent appointment with Civil Aviation Minister to review pay cuts of pilots of Air India and its subsidiaries. They say that the pilots are going through 25 percent pay cuts for the past five years and drastic cuts in their flying hours has also had a heavy toll on their income and has affected their livelihood to a great extent. The content of the letter is given below for the benefit of the viewers of www.indianpsu.com 

Respected Shri Hardeep Singh Puri ji,

Kindly treat this as a reminder to our earlier letter dated 22.10.2020 requesting for an urgent meeting. The Indian Aviation scenario is decidedly showing an upward trend, other private carriers have started scaling back the COVID austerity pay cuts for their pilots. Their recovery is generously helped by preferential treatment in terms of the number of flights allotted to them vis-à- vis Air India. This has also manifested in substantially increased load factors and therefore revenue generation for private carriers.

Sir, we, the pilots of Air India are already under torment by way of an illegal 25% pay cut for more than Five years. In addition to this, the recent pay cut of 60% for pilots from April 2020 as well as a drastic reduction in flying vis-à-vis private carriers has greatly diminished our livelihoods. Many of our member pilots have informed us of the immense stress they are under as they struggle to meet the needs of their children’s education or ailing elderly parents. This huge discriminatory pay cut has become unsustainable for us. It is high time to review the massive pay cut for the pilots of Air India and its subsidiaries.

In light of the above as well as our previous meetings, we request you to kindly grant us an urgent meeting at the earliest possible time. You are our singular hope in reversing this victimization.

Thanking you, Yours sincerely,

Capt. T. Praveen Keerthi                                                                    Capt. Kanav Hingorani
General Secretary, Indian Commercial Pilots’s Association         General Secretary, Indian Pilots’ Guild