Delhi
As a long over due step, Air India has decided to link its pilot’s wages to their flying hours irrespective of the number of hours spent in the cockpit.
Wide body and narrow body plane pilots get $2,050 and $1,500 every month as layover subsistence allowance basically to meet their incidental expenses while flying abroad. This payment is made irrespective of the number of overseas flights they undertake. Now instead of getting this as a fixed amount, pilots will be paid on the basis of the time actually spent on board.
Similarly, executive pilots — senior most pilots who do management jobs or train others on simulators — used to be paid for a fixed 72 flying hours a month, irrespective of the actual flying they do. “Now they too will be paid as per actual flying. Many executive pilots fly for about 10 to 15 hours a month,” said an official. To soften the blow for executive pilots, AI will give them an “executive flying allowance” of Rs 750 and Rs 900 per hour in addition to other payments.
And, pilots are a furious lot. “If AI has to be run like a professional airline, it must have a professional management free from sarkari strings. Every new minister gets his or her own management team in AI and starts experimenting. We are not run like an airline. We are run the way it suits our political and bureaucratic masters the best. Our current CMD, Rohit Nandan, is an honest person and an exception but the next minister will get his own team,” said a senior employee, who has spent over two decades in AI.
Read the full report here, Times of India
