Rivals plunder cash-strapped Air India’s cockpits

Mumbai: Cash-strapped national carrier Air India has lost 48 of its pilots to domestic and international rivals over the past three months, with thriving budget airliner IndiGo poaching two thirds of those. The rest have been hired by a clutch of carriers including domestic airlines like Jet Airways and SpiceJet as well as a few international carriers. Air India’s pilots have at least two good reasons to bail out: non-payment of salaries; and the government going back and forth on the issue of parity in service conditions between the pilots of the erstwhile Indian Airlines and those of AI.
“We were told that salaries will be paid regularly but every month only some part is credited despite the government assuring us that the issue of parity with AI pilots will be sorted out soon. Nothing has come through and we cannot survive on promises alone,” says a senior commander with AI who is slated to join Indi-Go. He adds that many more resignations are in the offing.
The InterGlobe Enterprises-promoted IndiGo is well placed to do so. The airline posted a profit of .`710 crore for the financial year 2011, the only airline in India other than SpiceJet that is in the black. It also needs pilots badly – Indigo will expand its fleet by four to 48 aircraft by the yearend, and to 60 by end-2012.
The airline had then told ET in an e-mailed reply that it has a requirement of 700-800 pilots over the next five years. Other airlines too are in hiring mode. Jet Airways is looking to hire 100 senior pilots while SpiceJet and Indi-Go both need about 400 pilots between the two of them on an immediate basis. Meantime, Air India with an annual wage bill of over Rs 3,000 crore has been struggling to pay salaries to its over 30,000 employees for over a year now.
06/10/11 Manisha Singhal/Economic Times