Indian Pilots Guild to end stir if recognition is restored: report

The agitating Air India pilots belonging to the Indian Pilots Guild (IPG), which now stands derecognised by the Air India management, has now offered to set aside all demands and end the strike if the government restored recognition to the union.

"As civil aviation minister Ajit Singh has assured us that our demands will be looked into, we all are ready to set aside our other demands and resume duties forthwith. But then we want the government to re-recognise the union to enable us represent the pilots during deliberations on the Dharmadhikari Committee report," PTI reported an IPG spokesperson as saying.

IPG's climb-down comes after the civil aviation ministry yesterday announced that it was going ahead with the Dharmadhikari Committee's recommendations on pay and service conditions in the merged Air India

During the course of the strike the management had terminated the services of 101 pilots and de-recognised IPG as the pilot's union since members of the union started reporting ''sick'' from 7 May.

"We want re-recognition (of the union) to enable us to represent Air India pilots during the discussions on Dharmadhikari report," the spokesperson said.

The pilots have so far been refusing to join work demanding among other things reinstatement of all the 101 sacked pilots, restoring recognition of IPG and reducing the number of years for a promotion from ten to six on par with that of the erstwhile Indian Airlines pilots.

Civil aviation minister Ajit Singh had repeatedly offered the pilots to look into all their demands if they ended their "illegal" agitation ''unconditionally''.

Now with the string of recognition attached to their offer, it is unlikely that IPG would get an official response from the aviation ministry.