Pilots Associations have expressed dissatisfaction with the functioning of the Crew Management System (CMS) and Day-to-Day Operations (DOPS) with Air India management, stating that while they are expanding cooperation due to the lack of flying personnel, they are not their “weakness” should be misunderstood.
In a letter to the Executive Director, Operations, TPS Dhaliwal, the Indian Commercial Pilots Association and Indian Pilots Guild have raised a number of issues related to their tight schedules and work fatigue.
“Since Air India management wisely pays pilots based on actual flight hours, the responsibility rests with the operator to evenly distribute the workload, particularly the fatigue-causing tasks, among the available flight crew,” the letter reads.
They highlighted several issues related to the CMS such as: B. No alignment of night flights and international stopovers, and inefficient alignment of actual flight hours across bases and fleet.
They have also pointed out that weekly special offers are being printed in violation of the Air India FDTL scheme.
In addition, there is a lack of proper rotation of the flights, the letter says.
Issues related to DOPS reported by both associations involve the manipulation of pre-flight SOD voyage logs to overcome crew shortages.
This is more common in the B777 fleet and needs to stop immediately.
They further claimed that the printed roster is often revised without the permission of the crew involved.
“Changes to the printed roster will be made without information or approval from the pilots concerned,” the letter said.
“Air traffic controllers are harassing pilots on sick leave to report fit due to a shortage of pilots. This is a serious problem for flight safety. If you call in sick, the scheduled roster will be removed for five consecutive days. This is absurd as air traffic controllers keep looking for crew to man the flights of the same pilot despite reporting back on duty in a day. These unnecessary changes to the printed roster result in a cascading effect,” the letter continued.
“A certain proportion of pilots are treated indifferently and denied DTA in violation of roster practices. Any attempt to discriminate against pilots based on their fleet and rank is unacceptable. If this discrimination continues we will be forced to withdraw our cooperation and only GM CMS should be held responsible for any flight disruption,” the associations warn in the letter.
“Fatigue-inducing tasks are intended for pilots who call in sick. Such intimidation tactics will prove fatal to flight safety. Fatigue-inducing tasks should be evenly distributed according to DGCA CAR FDTL,” they said.
Pilots have expressed hope that “common sense will prevail and management will adhere to established norms, regulations and practices to maintain industrial peace and harmony in a self-defeating manner.”
–IANS
ans/vd
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