After the Indian Pilots Guild’s (IPG) face-off with the national carrier, another pilots’ union has sought to lock horns with Air India’s management . The Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), the union of the erstwhile Indi-an Airlines has sent a legal notice to Air India CMD Rohit Nandan and the management over arbitrarily increasing the Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) or the number of flying hours.
Pilots say that technically, they are not against flying longer, but are protesting the “sudden” decision, which was allegedly made without taking the union into confidence. The notice argues violation of a bilateral agreement, which stipulates such decision to be taken after duly intimating the union. “This essentially means we are completing all the 1,000 hours that we fly in one year within eight months. This implies longer arduous flying hours, as well as under-utilisation of capacity,” said a senior ICPA pilot. A letter has also been written to Captain H.Y. Samant, the officer in-charge of all narrow-bodied aircraft operations over the issue.
Captain Praveen Keerthi, ICPA general secretary confirmed the notice and the letter to Captain Sama-nt. AI chief managing dire-ctor Rohit Nandan did not respond to repeated calls or text messages. The AI spokespersons were also unavailable for comment despite repeated attempts.