Air India seems headed for turbulence again as the national carrier's cockpit crew members are unhappy with the revival of a heavy deduction in their salaries.

The airline administration has reintroduced a deduction from the salaries of pilots under the head of training costs. This deduction had been scrapped in 2008.

A letter dated December 12, 2008 signed by Rajiv Gupta, deputy general manager (finance) reads, “It has now been decided to refund the amount of training cost in respect of pilots for whom the deduction was made after Jan 2008 and stop thereafter from Feb 2008 in the same number of instalments in which it was recovered from the Pilots concerned". Gupta's letter clearly indicates that the training cost that was deducted earlier from pilots of the fifitieth batch onwards was to be refunded.

Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) has written a letter to the executive director (IR) requesting to stop the training cost deduction. The letter reads, “It has been brought our notice that finance department has started deducting training cost from our members, 70th batch onwards from their July 2011 salary.”

ICPA general secretary Captain Rishabh Kapur has said that the deduction is "totally unjustified" and has requested the administration to “stop this deduction and refund the same to pilots from 70th batch onwards at the earliest.”

A ICPA member called the deduction "unethical" and said, “The deducted amount should be refunded soon as it will further provoke the pilots to take unindustrial step. We are already tormented by the attitude of the company due to delays in our salary.”