Merging AI & Indian Airlines: Tall task for Ajit Singh

Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh wants to reduce the number of Air India employees and bring down employee costs so that they are in sync with the domestic aviation industry.

He is also talking of devising a Voluntary Retirement Scheme to bring the manpower to aircraft ratio of the national carrier in line with industry norms (it is about four times the industry norm right now).

All these measures are part of a plan to integrate the erstwhile Air India and Indian Airlines; while the merger was announced five years ago, actual integration is still a long way off.

[caption id=“attachment_251291” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“A section of cabin crew members have gone on an indefinite strike this morning, upset over non-payment of flying allowances for the last six months. Reuters”]  [/caption]

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However, accomplishing any of these goals may be easier said than done.

Already, a section of cabin crew members have gone on an indefinite strike this morning, upset over non-payment of flying allowances for the last six months.

Turning down flying duty, 100 crew members have not registered their attendance in office today, Zee TV reported.

Some AI pilots have also threatened to go on strike from 1 April over the non-payment of salaries and other allowances for the past four months.

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Singh says more than 7,000 people will retire from the airline in natural course in the next three years. “VRS is also on the table. But I don’t know if it will work in the current environment. Integration between the two erstwhile airlines remains a problem,” he said.

Indeed it is. Consider this: If you happen to visit any Air India ticketing office during lunch hour, it is entirely possible that you may not get to buy a ticket. In a deposition before the Parliamentary Committee on Public Undertakings (Copu) earlier, the airline itself admitted that that the lunch hour of an employee of the erstwhile Air India (which was servicing international routes) is “specific”, while for an erstwhile Indian Airlines employee, it is rotated. “So, even in the lunch hour if you go to the IA counter, you may get the ticket but if you go to the AI (counter) they will say it is lunch hour and you have come back after the lunch hour. Both are sitting in the same room”.

Also, the two erstwhile carriers continue to follow different work week definitions: 38 hours, 44 hours and 48 hours per week. “To rationalise this means I have to sit down with all the employees and change the conditions. No two employees are willing to change the condition. …..everybody agrees to a 38-hour week,” then-chairman and MD Arvind Jadhv had said.

Not just lunch hour issues, seemingly trivial things such as different caps given to AI and IA employees have also hindered integration of the two streams.

The civil aviation ministry has tried everything from asking the government to put the integration on hold, setting up a panel under Justice Dharmadhikari to sorting out salary disparities and getting a common IT platform for the integrated airline. Singh is now tasked with the most unpleasant task of all: laying off some employees, giving lesser allowances to some categories of employees and ensuring the wide gulf between the two sets of employees is bridged.

The Dharmadhikari panel is likely to fix a nine-month timeframe for the completion of the integration process, Mint reported on Tuesday. Among the panel’s recommendations are bringing AI employee salaries in line with the guidelines set by the Department of Public Enterprises.

The Mint report also said that performance-linked incentives, which form a major portion of salaries at AI, are likely to be discarded except for “some categories like pilots”.