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Kolkata, Feb 17: Indian Airlines subsidiary Alliance Air, which was forced to cancel 61 flights since Monday evening after its ATR pilots took mass leave, has arranged three Boeing 737 aircraft from Delhi to maintain skeletal services to the north east.
Shekhar Ghose, regional director of Indian Airlines, said another B-737 would be inducted on the route on Friday.
Alliance operates four 48-seater twin turboprop ATR aircraft on the north-eastern sector. The four 119-seater B-737s will operate for the time being.
“Operating Boeings in the north-east is not economical in the long-term,” Mr Ghose told FE.
Reacting to the defiant pilots, Alliance’s management has served notices to two senior ATR pilots — Sanjay Gupta and SS Bindra — terminating their services. One of the pilots got to know of his fate from FE.
“They were instigating the 20-odd ATR pilots of the airline,” Mr Ghose said.
A senior ATR pilot said: “The management is closing all the doors to talk. This will leave us in no option but to take legal action.”
The pilots want better service conditions. “We are not forcing the management to hike our remuneration package. We would like to be treated at par with the Boeing pilots as far as service conditions are concerned,” one of them said.
Alliance Air started ATR operations on December 25, 2002, to keep the politically sensitive north-eastern states connected with Kolkata. The earlier practice of operating larger aircraft was not economical.
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