The Air India management's apathy over the issue of pay parity with Air India pilots and salary remittances delays has prompted the Indian Airlines pilots to protest with a work-to-rule agitation from February 12 (midnight) onwards.

The move comes as a fallout of the airlines management not heeding the pilots' request to urgently address the pending demands and plights of pilots who have not received their salary for the month of January by February 10.

Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) president captain A. S. Bhinder said, “We were assured of the salary getting credited by February 11 but the management has failed to keep its words. It has taken us very lightly so we declare work to rule from tomorrow.”

According to ICPA, the management has continually failed to act upon their demands on pay parity and has provoked them to take such an action of work-to-rule which can further lead to strike.

Bhinder says, “We have met the civil aviation minister and the secretary but the CMD has shown apathy by not meeting us on this issue.  He has agreed to meet on February 15 but if there is a trust deficit we will opt for strike. The managment has always failed in keeping its words but this time its not going to be very smooth for them.”

Work-to-rule move is expected to hit the loss-making Air India flight schedule. Under the work-to rule protest the pilots will not operate any pull-out flights. They will maintain their roster duty chart and will agree to no other flights which can lead to many flight cancellations.

Under the work-to-rule conditions the pilots will not operate for more than seven hours in a day. This also can lead to the cancellation of flights as after seven hours of operation in a day the pilot will not continue to fly. This may lead to stalling of many flights.

The management may have to bear the toll as it often prints flight schedules in contravention of line pilots' flight duty time limit (FDTL). The ICPA has advised its members to fly strictly in accordance with FDTL.