Even as Indian Airlines pilots threaten to strike work from February 11 over the issue of pay parity, the Air India (formerly NACIL) management has deferred their salary remittances for the thgird time this month.

Now, the pilots would be receive their salaries for the month of January on February 14, instead of February 10, as decalred earlier. The Indian Commercial Pilots Association(ICPA) was informed on Tuesday that the pilots' salaries will be delayed further, a day after the representative body had written to the management informing them of the pilots' intention to keep the airlines grounded from February 11 if the issue of pay parity was not resolved.

ICPA has now informed the civil aviation ministry and the Air India management of its decision to strike work from February 11 onwards.

In its letter to the managemenet, the ICPA says, "........in spite of this we have been cooperating with the management in the best interests of the company  and have been patient month after month with respect to a 7 day deferment in our salaries. This latest deferment is similar to the deferments of salaries from June 2009 to December 2009; which resulted in an eventual loss of a complete months’ salary of all employees."

It has also said that it is ready for a dialogue with the management on any issue. However, the association took exeception to the management mood so far, terming it as intentional provoking.

The letter states, "...it seems like the management is only interested in destabilizing the airline by provoking the Union. We would like to once again reiterate that although the interests of the company are foremost in our minds, we cannot continue to work for free and
no pay would mean no work."

The IA pilots have since long been begrudged an equal pay with their Air India counterparts though the two airlines were merged in 2007.

Pilots of the erstwhile IA are threatening to take "any action" unless their salaries are matched with the AI scale of pay. The pilots allege that their counterparts in Air India, AI Express and the expats serving the airline get almost 30-50% higher salaries than them.