Over 90 per cent of the cabin crew and a “majority of the pilots” have received and accepted the new compensation package, said Campbell Wilson, MD & CEO, of Air India. This comes amid the tussle that the airline is facing with its pilots. 

In an internal communication on Friday, Wilson said, “I’m pleased to report that 90% of cabin crew and a majority of pilots have received and accepted the new compensation package offered last week, which will be backdated to 1 April 2023.”

According to sources, Air India has over 3,000 pilots and close to 6,000 cabin crew on its payroll. This number includes pilots from Air India Express as well. 

Employee unrest

Last week, businessline reported that during a town hall, the new compensation structure, contract contours, and upgrades were discussed. The airline has been facing employee unrest after this. 

Two pilot unions, Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) and Indian Pilots Guild (IPG) rejected the revised compensation on the grounds that the airline had allegedly violated labour practices, and did not consult them before finalising the new contracts.

A pilot associated with one of the unions, requesting anonymity, said: “The airline has not been fair to the pilots. The contract is one sided, and is biased against the pilots. There are 18 clauses of termination,, besides this, it has included random medical checkups, an onus of changed roster on us this puts us on standby 24*7 which makes it difficult for the employees.”

A group of 1,500 pilots wrote a letter to Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons, seeking his intervention. They stated that they were not being treated with respect and dignity by the HR department of the airline, which was affecting their morale. Some employees also took to Twitter to air their grievances.

Tata Sons took over the airline in January 2022, after years of the government trying to disinvest it due to mounting losses. The company has since decided to merge them into two airlines; a full-service carrier merging Air India and Vistara and a low-cost carrier AirAsia India and Air India Express. 

Key questions

In his internal communication, Wilson also spoke about the fact that the top management conducted a meeting with the cabin crew to discuss the Jeppesen rostering tools which is expected to be operational in August.  

He said that so far, two interaction sessions have been conducted. These interactive sessions are to keep the crew informed of the developments and also share back to Jeppesen any issues being faced by the crew with over 800 participants attending the live broadcasts and 4,500 subsequent views. 

“The key questions revolved around crew fatigue and current roster instability, rotations, duty and block times, time and golden offs, etc. Our crew ambassadors and the implementation team will continue to engage, so stay tuned for the next round of sessions,” he added. 

On Thursday, Air India issued an advertisement stating that it is looking to hire over 1,000 pilots. The airline has placed an order of 470 aircraft with Boeing and Airbus to fuel its expansion plans domestically and internationally.

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