India's state-owned Air India hit by a pilots' strike

New Delhi/Mumbai, May 9 (PTI) Directing over 200 agitating Air India pilots to stop their "illegal strike", the Delhi High Court today barred them from reporting sick or staging demonstrations even as the management of India's state-owned carrier sacked 10 more pilots. As the agitation by pilots owing allegiance to the Indian Pilots Guild entered the second day, harried passengers complained of flight delays by several hours. Four international flights, two each from Delhi and Mumbai, were cancelled, an AI spokesperson said. All other international flights are operating as a contingency plan has been put in place with the available pilots, the official said. The pilots, under the banner of Indian Pilots Guild (IPG), are agitating over the rescheduling of Boeing 787 Dreamliner training and matters relating to their career progression. Justice Reva Khetrapal of the Delhi High Court issued notice to IPG and asked it to reply to a plea of Air India management seeking court's intervention and also a restraint order against the striking pilots. The judge also said allowing such strike to continue will cause irreparable loss to the company as well as huge inconvenience to the passengers travelling by the national carrier. The airline managment terminated the services of 10 more pilots for refusing to join work, taking the total number of sacked pilots to 20, airline sources told PTI in Mumbai. On its part, Government said it was ready to talk to the protesting pilots after they resumed duty. "If you have grievances, we can talk, but discussions and disruptions cannot take place simultaneously. They should withdraw their strike and apologise to the passengers," India's Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh told reporters in Delhi. The minister said the government has "a back-up plan (to deal with strike) .... We can downsize .... If employees are not interested that Air India should expand, then government is not going to provide money to it." "Air India is almost bankrupt. (It) is not able to pay salaries for months, not paid to airport authority and oil marketing companies," he said, adding the government is trying to revive Air India by infusing Rs 300.0 billion (about USD 5.7 billion) of "public money" over a period of time, but there are strings attached. Around 200 Air India pilots owing allegiance to Indian Pilots Guild (IPG) had reported sick yesterday resulting in cancellation of at least 13 international flights. Following flight delays, Air India passengers at several airports had heated exchanges with the airline staff, complaining that no information was being provided about their flights and no help rendered to accomodate them on alternate flights. Air India had yesterday terminated the services of 10 office-bearers of the IPG, which is spearheading the strike, besides de-recognising the union. The IPG has a strength of about 250 pilots while the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) has over 1,200 membership out of a total of 1,600 pilots. The remaining are mostly executive pilots. PTI