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BY OUR AVIATION CORRESPONDENT
May 13, 2005: Faced with a series of cancellations of flights, due to poaching of pilots by new entrants into the aviation sector - Kingfisher and Spicejet - Air Sahara is contemplating legal action against rivals. Simultaneously, the carrier is planning to hire expat pilots till the shortage of professionals is resolved.
Air Sahara is seeking legal action, mainly against 17 of its trained pilots, who have left to join rival carriers, in an attempt to recover Rs 20-40 lakh spent on training per pilot.
"Air Sahara has spent about Rs 20-40 lakh on training each pilot and getting them certified. Since they have quit without serving the notice period and have also not repaid the amount that Air Sahara spent on their training, we are taking the legal course to recover our dues," the airline's Chief Executive Officer Ronojoy Dutta said.
This comes close on the heels of the carrier winning a court injunction against Kingfisher Airlines and SpiceJet to stop poaching from Sahara's pool of trained manpower, including pilots and aircraft maintenance engineers.
Air Sahara has lost 10 of its trained pilots to Air-India Express, while the remaining seven have joined a start-up low cost private airline.
"Airlines need to expand the pool of resources available by training new pilots and technicians. Instead, some of these carriers are merely poaching on available talent," Dutta said.
The airline was forced to cancel four to six flights per day after losing 17 of its 250 pilots, that too within a short-span of 10 days, to competitors like Air-India Express, Kingfisher Airlines and SpiceJet. Previously, the private carrier had lost over 15 pilots to competition.
Air Sahara lost the pilots within days of the multi-airline agreement that made it mandatory to give a four-month notice by the pilots before resignation.
It operates 120 flights daily with a fleet of 21 Boeings and seven Canadian Regional Jets (CRJ 200) and had lost 10 pilots to Air-India’s low-cost subsidiary Air-India Express, five pilots to SpiceJet and two pilots to Kingfisher Airlines.
Meanwhile, Air Sahara is planning to hire expat pilots till its shortage of professionals is resolved.
As a step to boost its pool of pilots, the airline would depend on foreign pilots and has sought permission from the government.
The carrier's attempt to work out a no-poaching pact by Aviation Minister Praful Patel worked partially with all airlines agreeing on a four-month notice period but not immediately acceding on other issues such as a decision on training pilots so that all airlines could depend on at least an 80 per cent home grown crew.
Air Sahara expects its operations to be back on schedule from the first week of June 2005.
BY OUR AVIATION CORRESPONDENT
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