Air India pilots shoot off letter, warn carrier not to let salary delays happen again

Alleging lack of cooperation between Air India's commercial and finance departments as one of the reasons for the delay in salaries, one of its pilots' unions has urged the management to ensure that the situation is not repeated in future.

The Indian Commercial Pilots Unions (ICPA) in a letter to Air India chairman and managing director Pradeep Singh Kharola, has also said that the "financial uncertainty is a source of frustration, anxiety and stress, and all of which affects the overall performance level of employees".

Notably, the cash-crunch airline has delayed salary payments of its employees in May.

The financial mess has also forced the carrier to approach the banks and financial institutions for short-term loans to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore, besides requesting the government to infuse another Rs 2,000 crore in the current financial year.

The airline has said it expects to disburse May salaries by June 15.

"It is heartening to note that the salaries have again been delayed for the month (May). This is for the fourth consecutive month that this has been happening....This definitely does not augur well for any organisation, especially an airline," the ICPA said in the letter.

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Alleging that the employees of the subsidiary companies - AIATSL, AIESL, AIE, among others - have been paid even amid financial crunch, the pilots' union said, "There seems to be no coordination between the commercial and finance departments on cost of operations and how much money is supposed to be recovered for pricing tickets."

"We request you to make sure that the present situation is not repeated in future and we look forward to having a conducive atmosphere for the turnaround," the union added in the letter.