New Delhi: The Indian Commercial Pilot Association (ICPA) on Tuesday wrote a letter to the Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu seeking government’s nod on the One Rank One Pay’ for its pilots, reported news agency ANI. In its letter to the Union minister, IPCA said, “We fail to understand as to why the top management has turned a blind eye to this issue which is bleeding national carrier of high-value foreign exchange.” The Indian Pilots Guild (IPG) in October last year, gave consent to the common pay structure following which the proposal was sent to the Civil Aviation ministry but the approval of the same is still awaited.

Last month, a section of Air India pilots asked the airline's management to roll back its recent order to recover overtime flying allowance paid to pilots of its Airbus fleet in the past two-and-half-years. Pilots also stated that they will stop working if their flying allowance dues were not paid. In its recent letter subjected as ‘Dis-honest Scheme’, the IPCA said, “It has been more than a decade since the merger of two erstwhile airlines announced by the government. Since the day of the merger, ICPA has been urging the management to address pay parity (One Rank One Pay) amongst pilots.”

“We fail to understand as to why the top management has turned a blind eye to this issue which is bleeding the national carrier of high value foreign exchange,” the letter read further. Earlier, ICPA even sought clarity in a letter to the Air India (AI) chairman and managing director and claimed that the decision was taken without any consultation with the pilots’ body. The ICPA said the allowance is being paid as per a proposal cleared by the aviation ministry in January 2016.

Read the letter here:


ICPA is a representative body for the pilots of Indian Airlines Limited (AirIndia Ltd.) and has strength of more than 600 members across the country. The pilots’ body is aimed at providing working conditions of its members focusing on flight safety and building a trust among its members.