Air India to crack the whip on latecomers, will deduct salary of employees who delay flight

In an unprecedented move, Air India has decided to start penalising staff who turn up late for work and delay flights. The organisation will start deducting the salaries of latecomers. [caption id=“attachment_2029389” align=“alignleft” width=“385”]  Representational image. PTI[/caption] According to The Times of India,  Air India is trying to improve its image and its on-time performance. This new government order implemented by aviation secretary V Somasundaran will be effective from 1 February. It brings pilots, cabin crew, engineering staff (if they make aircraft available for flight late), ground handlers and even in-flight catering suppliers under its purview and make them liable for deductions. Somadundaran had previously ordered Air India to hire over 800 additional cabin crew to deal with the crew shortage problem that has been causing the national carrier severe delays. According to Deccan Chronicle, this move has raised concern among some of the AI employees, who now feel they will have to perform complicated tasks at record speeds and at times even compromise on the quality of their work. However, the airline officials have rubbished these claims saying the airline was only enforcing a certain standard of discipline and that this would not affect flight safety. On Saturday evening, an Air India flight from Delhi to Muscat, had to return shortly after take-off as the landing gear failed to retract. This serious air-safety breach following a suspected computer glitch may have led to the autopilot tripping. Luckily the pilot managed to manually operate and land the aircraft safely.