Trouble seems to be brewing again in Air India, this time with pilots of erstwhile Indian Airlines unionised under the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) issuing a legal notice to the airline CMD Rohit Nandan to protest against recent changes in their flight duty hours through a new flight duty time limitations (FDTLs).
The legal notice argues that the flight duty time limitations of ICPA pilots are fixed under a bilateral agreement between the union and the management and that "all these settlements are within the knowledge of the company and the government (DGCA), and therefore, no unilateral alteration is permissible"
Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh earlier this month had asked Air India to implement FDTL of 125 hours per month for pilots (as mandated by sector regulator DGCA), instead of 90 hours a month as per their union agreement, to increase flying-time and in turn utilisation of fleet and manpower. A recent study by the ministry had found that Air India pilots were flying just 6.5 hours a day against the laid down norm of nine hours.
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