A total of 80 flights were cancelled on Thursday. The Air India management sacked executive pilot VK Bhalla, taking the number of pilots terminated to 7 in the last two days.
Air India operations were severely affected today with around 80 flights being cancelled due to strike by pilots who got some stick from the Delhi High Court which warned that property of their trade union ICPA will be attached if they did not return to work immediately.
The Air India management also adopted a tough posture sacking an executive pilot Captain VK Bhalla today taking the number of pilots terminated to seven in the last two days. Six pilots in all were suspended with four more facing the action.
Civil aviation minister Vayalar Ravi met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and apprised him of the situation. He later briefed a meeting of the Union cabinet.
As the strike by the pilots defying the high court order entered the second day today, the state-owned airline was forced to stop ticket bookings for the next five days with a substantial number of 200 executive pilots joining the agitators, with at least 69 of them reporting sick.
Passengers at several airports bore the brunt of the strike, which is causing a daily loss of Rs4 crore, since they could not reach their destination in time even after they were transferred to private carriers.
Air India also clubbed several flights and operated wide-body Boeing 747 on the busy Delhi-Mumbai route to accomodate more passengers in one go.
As the AI management moved the high court to slap contempt charge on the strikers, Justice Geeta Mittal issued notices to the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) office bearers seeking replies as to why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against them.
"There is no exception. If you do not comply, I have no choice but to pass an order, including attachment of (ICPA) property", said Justice Mittal reacting to the refusal by the pilots to call off their strike despite her direction yesterday to do so in "larger public interest."
ICPA President A S Bhinder, General Secretary Rishabh Kapoor and Regional Secretary Amitesh Ahuja were also asked to be present before the court on Monday.
The ICPA, which was derecognised yesterday and their offices sealed by the management, is demanding a higher fixed component in the salary package, a CBI probe into the alleged mismanagement which has led to losses of over Rs 16,000 crore and removal of Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav holding him responsible for the "financial mess".
Maintaining that the airline had cancelled 57 flights yesterday and 81 today, a company spokesman said "the management is open to negotiations to resolve the issues. The pilots are part of the Air India family and we need them".
Acknowledging that 69 executive pilots have joined the ongoing stir, he said the management has decided to suspend all bookings over the next five days and added that the national carrier was suffering a daily loss of Rs four crore.
Ravi, who has taken a firm view of the situation, came out in support of the actions taken by the airline management against the striking pilots.
He is understood to have apprised the Cabinet of some pending issues that arose after the merger of erstwhile Indian Airlines with Air India and how they remained unaddressed.
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