Here's a quick quiz for these turbulent times. The pilots of which airline, on an average, clock half the flying hours of most international airlines and draw extremely handsome salaries to boot? The pilots of which airline sought to be paid Rs 75,000 just to agree to be trained for landing aircraft in foggy conditions with the aid of the Cat III? The pilots of which airline refused to fly to Kuwait during the Iraq war and are now refusing to fly to Singapore and Hong Kong, ostensibly because of the Sars epidemic? There can, of course, be no prizes for figuring out the winning answer, because it is self-evident. Everybody knows that Air-India’s pilots are among the most pampered, arbitrary and self-focussed in the world and are now intent on running an airline, that is already in poor financial shape, to the ground. Consider the manner they went about their latest action. There was no declaration of a formal strike, instead they suddenly insisted that they would not fly unless they were assured in writing that none of the crew members accompanying them had visited a Sars-hit country over the last ten days. This is a simply extraordinary, seeing that no airline in the world can ensure such a demand, seeing that the World Health Organisation has issued no advisory of this kind. Every job has its share of hazards and professionalism demands that they be tackled in a manner that is both effective and non-disruptive. The pilots of the Indian Airlines flying to Southeast Asian destinations demanded and were allowed to take their breaks at Bangkok instead of Singapore. Interestingly, the Air-India pilots did not even come up with such a proposal. It is this lack of transparency that has lost them public sympathy. The nation would be forgiven for believing that it is not the Sars epidemic that is the primary concern for these pilots, that it is just a fortuitous development to armtwist their management into making even greater concessions. The government has — for the moment at least — decided to come down on the pilots. But, in many ways, it has only itself to blame for the crisis, having allowed itself time and again to be hijacked by this intransigent bunch. For too long, everybody connected with the airline designated as the country’s national carrier — from the bureaucrat-on-the-make to the mantri-on-the-move — has come to view it as a milch cow to be endlessly exploited. This has been done at the expense of two entities: The passengers who have had to cope with, not just the routine bad manners and poor service, but the interminable cancellations and postponements; and the airline itself, whose image and market value have never been lower.
