Air India taking five retired pilots on contract CAG criticises IA for incurring avoidable expenses77
Air India cancels 37 flights from Gulf
Dubai,Sunday, April 27, 2003: India's domestic carrier Indian Airlines has stepped in to lift stranded passengers from Gulf after Air India cancelled 37 flights from the region beginning today till the end of the month due to the strike by its pilots over the SARS epidemic.
"Nearly 45 per cent of the flights from the Gulf have been cancelled due to the strike and the stations most affected are Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Muscat," P P Singh, Regional Director Air India said. "Flights from (from) Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar are largely unaffected," he said, adding 37 flights out 75 have been cancelled. The worst affected are flights from Dubai and Abu Dhabi as 23 flights from the two stations have been cancelled. Of the 37 cancelled flights, 13 are from Dubai, 10 from Abu Dhabi 6 from Muscat , 3 from Dammam, 2 from Jeddah, and one each from Riyadh, Doha and Kuwait, Singh said.
"We have prepared a new schedule from April 27 to April 30. The passengers who were booked on the cancelled flights will be carried on other Air India flights or will be endorsed on Indian Airlines or if need be on other gulf airlines," Singh said. Indian Airlines will operate additional flights and accommodate Air India ticket holders on regular flights.
CAG criticises IA for incurring avoidable expenses77
New Delhi,Sunday, April 27, 2003: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has castigated Indian Airlines for incurring avoidable expenditure on aircraft maintenance, including sending aircraft abroad for major checks despite having in-house facilities, in five years till March 2002.
Despite having facilities for carrying out major checks (C-checks) on A-320 aircraft, it sent 12 such planes abroad between May 1998 and March 2002 and spent Rs 296.7 million towards labour cost, a CAG report on public sector units tabled in Parliament last week said.
While IA management stated that the aircraft were being sent out due to paucity of capacity for major maintenance, the reply was "not tenable as overall capacity for C-checks during the period 1998-99 and 2001-02 was 72 against which only 59 C-checks were carried out in-house".
Similarly, the IA paid about Rs 480 million to Airbus Industrie to redesign and supply nose cowls fitted on all V-2500 engines of the A-320s, "despite the fact that nose inlet cowls were expected to last the full life of the aircraft with periodic repairs and the manufacturer failed to pinpoint the source of the problem", the report said. The excess grounding of A-300s and A-320s on account of delays in completion of various checks in engineering bases resulted in loss of revenue of about Rs 2.09 billion, it said
LG Electronics sued for "misdeclaring" fridge capacity
New Delhi,Sunday, April 27, 2003: LG Electronics has been taken to the apex consumer body by an NGO for making wrong claims about capacity of its refrigerators and thereby raking in "unjust enrichment" of over 11 crores.
The Korean multinational has been issued notice by the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission on a complaint filed by Ahmedabad-based NGO - Consumer Education and Research Centre and a user of its refrigerator who accused the company of unfair and deceptive trade practice. The matter would come up for hearing on May 23. The complainants claimed that the gross volume claimed by LG falls short of measured gross volume by about 11 per cent, which is almost four times the international permissible tolerance limit (three per cent).
Air India taking five retired pilots on contract
Mumbai,Sunday, April 27, 2003: Air India today decided to recruit five retired pilots, who still hold valid licences, on contract basis for a short period to augment its pilot strength following Indian Pilot's Guild refusal to withdraw its directives on operations to SARS affected regions.
"We have identified five retired commanders --four for Boeing 747 and one for Airbus 310-- so far and are issuing them letters to take them on contract subject to them being medically fit", AI spokesperson said here. They would undergo the necessary simulator training and flight checks before being deployed on flights, he said.The airline currently has 160 executive pilots.
AI is finalising its flight schedule for next three days as part of its contingency plans. Twenty two of the 27 flights have been scheduled for operations today.
Reacting to IPG's assertion that they had not put forward any financial demand, the spokesman said "we will like a written communication from the guild that they have no such demand and are willing to go for CAT III training". "This is the minimum they can do to prove their point", he added. The spokesman had yesterday said that IPG was demanding US dollar 35 per hour flying allowance for all pilots in view of the CAT III landing instruments installed in Delhi, irrespective of whether they fly to Delhi or not.