The Air India pilots strike has brought bedlam to the Mumbai airport. If the strike caused disquiet in the passengers, Union civil aviation minister Vayalar Ravi’s comments have set of swells of despair.
The Air India pilots strike has brought bedlam to the Mumbai airport. If the strike caused disquiet in the passengers, Union civil aviation minister Vayalar Ravi’s comments have set of swells of despair. He wants to know what the pilots are fussing about. He suggests that with their XII standard qualification, they should consider themselves well paid.
That is a remarkably daft assertion. To me, it does not appear to be a response befitting a minister facing one of the worst crises his department has ever contended with. Such patrician indifference exemplifies the government’s patchy strategy to deal with a grave problem. Air India ordered planes worth $11 billion at a time when its equity was just Rs145 crore. To pay back the debt, it would have needed to double its revenue at least. But its domestic skies’ market share is just 15%, and 25% in the overseas market. These disturbing numbers scream that whoever ordered the new planes had not even mastered basic arithmetic, let alone complete standard XII! Can the honourable minister explain how this happened? Or would he insist that anyone who asks this have a doctorate in calculus?
As for the wage parity that the pilots are demanding, many experts have spoken in favour of some rationalisation of Air India-Indian Airlines salaries. No one would justify the strike of course. Even the experts who are asking the government to look at the parity question with sympathy will not condone the agitation. I also strongly believe that the pilots’ approach is insensitive and indeed plain wrong. While they have the right to seek resolution for a long-standing dispute, they cannot make so many thousands suffer. The right method would be to put pressure on the government across the negotiation table. Pilots’ representatives can discuss the demands while the former continue to do their duty. In that situation, it would have been perfectly acceptable for the pilots to set a reasonable deadline for resolution.
Mumbaikars, and thousands of people in other cities, would not have suffered so much if the government had anticipated the most rudimentary difficulties arising out of the merger of the two carriers. Besides, pilots who flew for Indian Airlines before the merger, have long wanted pay parity with their Air India colleagues. A pilot’s pay is governed by flying hours. And the domestic operations of the national carrier do not offer as many hours as overseas segment because the number of inter-India flights has been reduced in recent past. So pilots flying the domestic routes earn less than those who operate on overseas sectors. This too is a case of fundamental calculation, which the so-called ‘standard XII’ pilots have understood but the civil aviation ministry has not. So it is time to ask Ravi if he would like some help from a ‘Paanchvi Pass’ genius?
It is, of course, not a dramatic revelation that the government can be arrogant and ignorant at the same time. But pilots must fight that without hurting the general public.
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