Patel meets employees of AI, Indian before merger

New Delhi, Jan 17: With high expectations on the merger of government-owned Air India (AI) and Indian within 10 weeks, civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel today held a series of meetings with employees' representatives in an effort to quell their lingering fears.

Two days ago, a Group of Ministers (GoM) had asked him to take up the issue of integration of employees in a cautious manner to avoid an unwanted situation and to ensure that their interests are protected.

While AI has 16,000 employees, Indian has about 17,000. The civil aviation ministry wants a mega entity to beat growing competition from domestic and foreign airlines.

The Air Corporations Employees' Union (ACEU), representing 13,000 employees of Indian, said it has no objection to the merger plan but issues like wage revision, career progression, pension benefits and parity in deployment must be addressed carefully.

ACEU general secretary Arun Kumar said small airlines cannot face growing competition from no-frills airlines due to high fuel and other operational costs.

Indian, he said, is likely to suffer a revenue loss of Rs 1,000 crore due to non-availability of aircraft engines.

UNI