Air India hits back at pilots for ‘false’ claims

NEW DELHI: A non-existent scam is proving to be the latest flashpoint between Air India management and its pilots.

The AI management Tuesday issued notice to the airline's pilots' union over "misrepresenting facts and spreading malicious" rumours. The Indian Commercial Pilots' Association (ICPA, union of erstwhile Indian Airlines' pilots) had alleged that six grounded-for-years Boeing 737 (freighter) were "being insured at $1 million each".

The airline management said in reality an amount of $90 to $145 was spent on insuring each of these grounded freighter aircraft. "This kind of falsehood cannot be tolerated, especially when it is an attempt to tarnish the airline's image. We are open to constructive criticism and innovative ideas but no one should speak the untruth and then use it as an excuse to bring a bad name to AI," said a senior official.

The airline top brass has indicated that it will "take this issue to its logical conclusion". The merged AI-Indian Airlines entity now has only one pilots' union, ICPA. The union of erstwhile AI pilots, Indian Pilots'Guild, was derecognized about two years back when they had gone on strike to prevent IA pilots from flying the widebody Dreamliners. Now whether ICPA meets the same fate remains to be seen after blowing the whistle on a non-scam.

"Insurers provide a heavy discount on premium payment of grounded fleet. The planes has to be insured as long as they are on our registration to protect against fire, theft of spare parts as they are lying grounded or any other natural calamity," a senior official said.

These aircraft were nearing the end of their life as passenger planes and were converted to freighters (cargo) aircraft about seven to eight years back. A private courier company was to operate these aircraft which it did from May, 2007, till the contract was abruptly terminated in March, 2009.

Air India