AI pilots overworked: Union health minister

While the aviation minister has insinuated that the striking Air India pilots are a 10+2 pass pampered lot drawing huge salaries, a recent letter by Union health minister Dinesh Trivedi to the prime minister has highlighted the poor conditions in which pilots operate.

In the letter dated November 11, 2010, Trivedi mentions how AI pilots are made to fly even when they are unwell without any caution to air safety. “Pilots of both Air India and Indian Airlines are forced to report to duty and fly even when they are unwell.

“On the basis of complaints received by the Indian Pilot Guild, I have already written a letter to the director general of civil aviation (DGCA) on October 27, 2010, raising the implications of a person who is not fully fit and hence not alert for flying a aircraft,” he wrote.
“I have requested the DGCA to look into the ongoing framing of regulations pertaining to the prevention of fatigue, namely flight duty time limitation and rest periods.”

The minister also gave an anecdote of a pilot operating a flight in civilian clothes.  “On November 7, 2010, along with railway minister Mamata Banerjee and some of my colleagues, I boarded Flight AI-861 from Kolkata for Delhi, when we saw a person wearing jeans and T-shirt sitting on the commander’s seat.

“On enquiry, I was told that he was the commander of the aircraft, Capt AK Mohan. The cabin crew said that the pilot had been ordered to operate another flight at the last minute,” the letter reads.