Air India cancels 14 flights as stir by pilots continues

New Delhi, Sep 28 (PTI) Air India Monday cancelled 14
flights from Indian national capital New Delhi as a section of
the agitating executive pilots refused to accept the
management's proposal to set up a committee to look into their
grievances and continued with their stir.

The airline cancelled 12 domestic flights to
Bangalore, Varanasi, Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Leh, Nagpur, Raipur,
Bhubaneshwar, Chandigarh, Hyderabad and Tirupati besides two
international ones to Bangkok and Kabul after the pilots of
these flights did not report to work, an airlines' official
said.

The national carrier operates over 50 flights from the
national capital, but Sunday they decided to run just 27
flights out which only 18 were operated.

In a bid to buy peace with its agitating executive
pilots, Air India Sunday night put on hold the cut in the
pilots Productivity-Linked Incentives(PLI), which triggered
the stir, and decided to form a seven-member committee to look
into the modalities in the cut in the PLIs.

But representative of the agitating executive pilots,
Captain V K Bhalla refused to accept the proposal, saying the
management will first have to pay the due flying allowance and
PLIs of three month to all pilots and withdraw the order of
cut in their PLIs.

"If they pay us our dues, then a neutral platform for
talks would be set up and then we will go for any talks,"
Bhalla told PTI. PTI SMJ
ANU