Young pilots to move High Court against Air India over alleged foul play in recruitment
Young pilots to move High Court against Air India over alleged foul play in recruitment
Grounded by an 'indifferent' prospective employer, 68 pilots have decided to move the Delhi High Court to keep their dream of flying an Air India airliner, in air.
The pilots, who spent several lakh of rupees in obtaining a commercial pilot licence, have blamed the Alliance Air
- the low-cost wing of Air India - of foul play.u00a0
Irked by the selection process and interview results being withheld for over 10 months, the young pilots will file a petition on July 2. MiD DAY had reported on June 22 that putting the selection process for trainee pilots in abeyance, Alliance Air had published an advertisement for type-rated pilots in the same category of aircraft last month.
The young pilots have alleged that the new advertisement is "eyewash" and a move to accommodate few pilots from some private airlines. The airline tried to made backdoor entries of certain pilots from other airlines but as they complained about the incident to vigilance department, the airline published a new advertisement and added conditions in order to benefit certain pilots.
"They (private airline pilots) do not have the required type-rating of the aircraft for which the airline has advertised. They are being recruited and given an opportunity to obtain type-rating certificate of advertised aircraft at the cost of the airlines," alleged a trainee pilot.
The pilots said the Air India could have told them in the first place itself that they want to hire type-rated pilots and they would have readily undergone the training. "If I can spend over Rs 30 lakh for obtaining the licence, I would have easily spent more to obtain type-rating at my own expense. But making the entire selection process so dubious, isn't fair at all,'' countered another pilot.
Case files In April 2008, Air India had invited applications for trainee pilots in Alliance Air. The written test was held on May 25, in which 260 candidates were invited. Out of these, 92 were selected and appeared for an interview held in Delhi between September 2 and 12. Around 68 commercial pilot license holders appeared for the interview. However, the airline has neither declared the result nor cancelled the interview process. The Airline in June 2009 advertised the vacancy for type-rated pilots of the same category aircraft, for which the airline had called trainee pilots for interview.
