New Delhi, October 7
Comparing their condition similar to Kingfisher employees, a section of Air India pilots have sought Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh's intervention in resolving their grievances related to due salaries and allowances.

In a letter to the minister, the Indian Commercial Pilots Association termed the suicide by the wife of a Kingfisher employee as "unfortunate" and said that "things at Air India were not too different from Kingfisher Airlines".

"Our salaries and flying allowances too are pending for months and the uncertainty regarding the schedule of payments has become unbearable," ICPA general secretary Capt T Praveen Keerthi said.

"An unsatisfied employee cannot keep up efficiency for long as his financial worries take over his thought process. A stressed pilot is a potential disaster in waiting," he said, adding that an AI engineer too had committed suicide last year due to financial worries.

"We appreciate your understanding of the fact that flight safety is affected if employees have not been paid for several months. We request you to intervene at the earliest and restore normalcy in our lives which unfortunately has been lacking for past three years," Keerthi said. — PTI