Air India Pilots' Body To DGCA: 'Over-Burdened' Co-Pilots In Cockpit Is 'Perfect Recipe For Disaster'

NEW DELHI: An Air India pilots’ body has urged Directorate General of Civil Aviation to look into the issue of deployment of a section of its “stressed” junior pilots in the cockpit, days after the Germanwings plane crash.

Stating that some 30-odd co-pilots were being “forced to work overtime” without any remuneration, the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), in a letter to the aviation regulator on Thursday alleged that “putting these highly-stressed and financially over-burdened co-pilots in the same cockpit… is a perfect recipe for disaster.”

“These co-pilots have being receiving an ad-hoc payment for more than 18 months which amounts to less than 1/3rd of their actual salary. They are being forced to work overtime without any remuneration and also are not allowed to take any kind of leave,” said the letter.

These co-pilots are under immense financial stress as it is affecting their livelihood and the same has been communicated to the management in writing, but to no avail, the pilots’ body said.

ICPA represents the narrow-body Airbus A320 pilots in the airline. This is the second time in the last 10 days that ICPA has red-flagged safety concerns in Air India to the DGCA.

Earlier, it had asked DGCA to ground the airline’s 26-year-old A-320 fleet citing safety concerns.
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