The most sensational charge came from a commander this month, who accused his co-pilot of engaging in an intimate encounter on a long-haul flight. He alleged that the co-pilot left the cockpit to take a rest, but changed into civvies and was found cozying up to a lady friend in the economy section.
Top officials of the airline -which is Indian -have been getting SMSs about this `incident', but neither the commander nor crew has lodged a formal complaint. "There is no basis on which we can take action against the co-pilot in question or even start a probe into the incident," says a senior official. Those in charge believe the commander could have floated this allegation to harm the co-pilot's reputation.
Less sensational but serious accusations abound. On a recent inbound flight to India from South-east Asia, the captain and his deputy allegedly fought on board over some pre-flight calculation and refused to fly with each other. The airline's head of operations from India had to intervene before the flight was grounded in a foreign land.
These scuffles are not limited to the stratosphere.
There's a fierce war raging on social media among pilots of two different airlines of the same group that now have to fly as one. A senior official from the airline's flight operations department admits they have been receiving a large number of anonymous complaints about unsafe flying by certain pilots. "But when we investigate it, nothing is found. These complaints are filed to harm the other person," he says.
Although fights have escalated in recent times, they are not a new phenomenon.
Back in 2009, a mid-air scuffle allegedly broke out be tween the two pilots and cabin crew members on an Air India flight, with one of the female crew members filing a police complaint against the pilot after the flight landed in Delhi. But while that incident may have been sparked by personal animosity, the recent brawls are ignited by another agenda. Shakti Lumba, former VP of AI and IndiGo, says inter-pilot rivalry can be attributed to two things -seniority and salary. "Pilots are driven by these two ambitions. Seniority gets them better pay, aircraft, perks and retirement benefits. This has led to disputes among pilots of merged or quasi-merged airlines globally," he says.
For instance, he claims Jet Airways pilots don't have a problem with the pay of their JetLite counterparts, but they don't want them to be given seniority.Air India and Indian Airlines, on the other hand, are fighting about pay parity."An AI co-pilot flying with an IA captain may be paid the same (as IA is on a lower scale). This will obviously lead to problems," Lumba says. AI pilots went on strike some years ago to stop IA pilots from flying the Dreamliner even as IA pilots sought pay parity. Seven years after the merger, the issue remains unresolved.
Kanu Gohain, former DGCA chief, says that strict monitoring of cockpit voice recorders should be done."Increasing instances of poor relations among pilots is a very serious issue," he says."Everything is well laid down under cockpit resource management. There is no ambiguity and no reason to fight in the cockpit."
Perhaps it's time to read the writing on the wall, or cockpit door where one airline has chosen to lay down the law, stating, "Flying is a serious business. Leave your worries behind before entering it."
