A crisis hit yet another domestic airline as a number of pilots of Air Alliance went on strike, reportedly demanding salary hikes. The pilots called for a flash strike after the company allegedly failed to give a promised 25% retainership to those protesting. According to a TOI report, the strikes started in Delhi and spread pan-India. It cannot be established whether any flights were cancelled as a result of the strike. The airline is yet to respond on the matter.
The regional fixed-wing airline is the government-owned subsidiary of recently-divested Air India. The government plans to divest the airline, and likely bidders include Tata and IndiGo. The airline operates on domestic routes with the exception a single flight on the Chennai-Jaffna, Sri Lanka. The airline has 18 ATR72-600 aircraft.
Earlier today hundreds of passengers were left stranded at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi, after the German airline Lufthansa cancelled nearly all of its 800 flights as pilots walked out. Labour union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) on Wednesday said that salary negotiation with the airline failed, calling on pilots at both the passenger and Lufthansa Cargo divisions to go on strike, according to reports. The union is demanding a 5.5% appraisal for over 5,000 pilots and automatic inflation compensation.
At Delhi, as many as 700 passengers, mostly students, headed to North America, protested and resorted to sloganeering both inside and outside the terminal after they found out that their connecting Lufthansa flights had been cancelled. The police had to be called in to prevent the situation from flaring up.
The German carrier said, “The strike announced by the pilots’ union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) for Friday (September 2) will have a massive impact on flight operations. Lufthansa has to cancel 800 flights at its hubs in Frankfurt and Munich for Friday. An estimated 1.3 lakh passengers will be affected.”
In response to VC’s demand, the airline offered to raise the basic salary of pilots by 900 euros ($902) a month in two stages over an 18-month term.
