Air India crisis: Meeting with pilots end without consent

Negotiations between representatives of the Indian Pilots' Guild (IPG) and AI management ended here "without consensus" but both sides decided to continue the talks in Mumbai tomorrow, IPG sources said.

However, not a single flight of Air India was disrupted and all of its over 420 flights scheduled for the day operated normally, an Air India spokesperson said. 

Click here to read about AI's much-delayed corporate debt restructuring

Airline sources said low-cost subsidiary AI Express had cancelled 13 flights since October 25 as 11 commanders and 12 co-pilots reported sick. They said another nine AI Express flights were likely to be cancelled over the week and passengers have been given advance notice so that they can rebook their tickets. 

The sources said all efforts were being made to maintain the AI Express services to and from the Gulf due to the pre- Eid rush.

The pilots, owing allegiance to the IPG which has pilots of the erstwhile Air India as its members, have been at loggerheads with the management charging it with adopting discriminatory attitude against them vis-a-vis their erstwhile Indian Airlines counterparts.

Reacting to the protest, Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi said, "There is no deadlock. Air India management is in talks with their association. We are trying to resolve it. We can find a way out".