The management of ailing Air India (AI) has given into yet another union, the All India Cabin Crew Association (AICCA), and met their various long-standing demands, mainly those related to timely promotion.

“The association met Executive Director for Operations & Customer Services, and resolved various long-standing issues of the cabin crew of both the carriers (AI and erstwhile Indian Airlines),” AICCA General Secretary Mr Sanjay Lazar said in a release here on Tuesday. The move will help 1,600 cabin crew members, he said.

AI Chairman and Managing Director Mr Arvind Jadhav has accepted the proposals following which an order to this effect was issued by the Executive Director, Mr Lazar said.

Early in May, the AI management had agreed to some of the demands of the pilots of the erstwhile Indian Airlines, who went on a 10-day strike from April 27. The strike caused an average daily loss of Rs 26 crore to the national carrier that is sitting on a debt pile of nearly Rs 18,000 crore.

The AICCA’s demands included promotion of Grade 7 of Air India cabin crew to Grade 10 and promotion of Grade 3-4 Indian Airlines crew to Grade 5-6, Mr Lazar said and pointed out that these demands were part of the 2008 merger agreement. Following this, the court cases filed in this regard would be withdrawn, Mr Lazar said.

He claimed the cabin crew were the only section of the 32,000-strong AI employees who had been deprived of time-bound promotions even though it had been approved by the board.

The AICCA stressed the need to urgently resolve the time-bound promotion of 2010 and 2011 before implementing the recommendations of the Dharmadhikari Committee, set up to go into merger-related HR issues facing AI employees.

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