Merger caused Air India mess: Jet staff

NEW DELHI: Striking pilots of erstwhile Air India may be facing the wrath of the government and passengers but now there is an increasing call from the pilot community - cutting across airlines - for examining the woes of the Maharaja. Pilots of India's largest airline, Jet Airways, have written to aviation minister Ajit Singh and squarely blamed the merger of AI and Indian Airlines for the current state of the national airline. Even the current arch rivals of striking Indian Pilots' Guild (IPG), IA's Indian Commercial Pilots' Association (ICPA) have written to the airline management against the latter's decision to ask the DGCA to terminate licences of 11 AI pilots.

Jet Airways' pilots association, Society for Welfare of Indian Pilots (SWIP), has written to Ajit Singh saying: "the present state of affairs (in AI) is the result of an obviously failing merger of two distinct entities AI and IA... An aviation company can ill afford its pilots to be in a state of mental stress and anxiety which is a consequence of the failed merger of AI and IA... The merger has created massive trust deficit between section of employees and mangagement." SWIP has appealed for reinstatement of the 71 IPG members sacked so far and called for dialouge between IPG, ICPA and the management.

Pilots of erstwhile IA also do not favour a harsh step like terminating licence of their AI counterparts. "Our disagreement may be on several issues including the fact that a strike should not have been resorted to at the critical juncture that AI is in. But cancelling pilots' licence is very harsh and we do not support that." They also largely blame the merger for the current state of affairs. "Someone needs to examine why things so wrong. The current impasse is just a symptom and not the disease," the senior IA pilot said

IA pilots say the airline employees have faith in the current setup of aviation minister Ajit Singh, secretary Nasim Zaidi and CMD Rohit Nandan.