Jet Airways pilots apologise for quoting 'incorrect designation' of DGCA official

Jet Airways Pilots on 6 June, while issuing an unconditional apology letter for wrongly quoting the designation of a senior Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), countered to allegation made by the formers office on the same.

In its letter, the Pilots assured the DGCA that their mind is clear and claimed that the latter's office has mis-stated many facts.

Responding to the claims of the DGCA office stating that it takes 8-9 months to train a pilot for airline operations, the pilots responded that as per the last CAR dated 2009, this was four months and advised the Indian Airlines to match the industry standard of training time.

"The airline training process must be investigated and they should be held accountable in case they are mismanaging training. A crosscheck of records would reveal that in fact command upgrades have been completed within 3 months when expansion is on the cards and delayed or stopped when the airline deems fit. Thus the figure of 8-9 months is incorrect," Pilots said.

Denying the claim made by the office of the DGCA that they are going to resign without notice, pilots said that as per the current CAR Section 7 series X part II pilots need to give six months notice period to the airlines employing them.

Countering the claim of public interest, the pilots asserted that someone resigns, only when the circumstances which make the working environment unsuitable for them because of many reasons, which could be an unsafe work culture, allocation of base, denial of leave and career progression.

"It is for the management to create right environment to retain talent and not use coercive tactics that would spoil the atmosphere in the cockpit, thereby compromising flight safe. It is not in the public interest to have a discontented pilot in the cockpit," the statement said.

The letter said that there are immense responsibilities that the pilots bear on their shoulders, with increasing flying, due to expansion, high traffic density and other work related stresses there is enough burden on the shoulders of an airline pilots.

"To add to this, a prolonged notice period of one year is highly unfair and undesirable. In fact the notice period should be reduced to three months as per international standards to ensure that employee doesn't endure undue stress which would definitely lead to unsafe operations," the statement said.

The Pilots even said that in the past, the regulator has not intervened to protect the interest of the employees who have not been paid salaries on time or other increments as per contractual/legal obligations including NOCs and requested that the regulator should stay clear of labour associated issues which are purely an HR function.

Earlier, the Delhi Police examined a group of pilots after DGCA filed complaint against them for allegedly bad mouthing their bosses in a WhatsApp group.

Ten Jet Airways pilots were kept out of flying duties for wrongly addressing a senior DGCA official in a communique.

The pilots were detained on a complaint from the DGCA.

-ANI