Pilots of the erstwhile Indian have sent a legal notice to the airline Chairman and Managing Director, Rohit Nandan, for unilaterally changing the number of hours that they are supposed to fly.
The Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) has pointed out in their legal notice that the Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) was an integral part of their service conditions. FDTL lays down the number of hours a pilot is supposed to fly in a fixed time period.
It was not immediately clear whether the pilots were planning any industrial action, including striking work, to get their point of view across to the management.
The notice states that starting with the settlement in 1993, the FDTL terms applicable to ICPA had been revised regularly – first in 2001 and again in 2006.
“The agreements were further continued by virtue of the documents of merger of 2007, most particularly the scheme of amalgamation, which provided that the pilots would not be subject to conditions less favourable to those existing at that point of time,” the notice states.
It adds that pilots came across news reports that the company was to “unilaterally” alter the FDTL without consulting the ICPA.
“ICPA believes that great injustice is being meted out to them by way of the proposed action,” the petition states, and adds that all the settlements are in the knowledge of both the company and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and, therefore, no unilateral alteration was permissible.