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NEW DELHI: Erstwhile Air India pilots are threatening to strike work but the government may not be ready to play ball this time. The pilots threatened to go on strike from Monday night, minutes after their talks with the airline management and aviation ministry failed on the issue of training for the Boeing-787 Dreamliner.

The ministry, toughening its stand, has warned that it will shut international flights of the airline if the strike snowballs and will take strict action against the agitating pilots.

Sources in the 500-strong AI pilots’ union, Indian Pilots’ Guild (IPG), said about 100 pilots had reported sick by 9pm on Monday and the number may swell to 250 by Tuesday. Flights had already started getting affected.
This stir could cripple AI’s international operations just ahead of the peak summer holiday season that begins this weekend.

AI cancelled Monday night-Tuesday morning’s Mumbai-Newark, Delhi-Toronto and Delhi-Chicago flights. Among longhauls, only Delhi-New York is expected to operate early on Tuesday morning.

"Instead of delaying flights by 2-2 hours which is very irksome, we decided to cancel flights as 45 erstwhile AI pilots already reported sick by 11pm on Monday," said sources.

Dreamliner training put on hold

The latest strike threat comes from the heartburn caused among the erstwhile AI pilots after the Supreme Court backed the management’s decision of sending pilots from the erstwhile Indian Airlines for training on the Dreamliner. IPG had been laying exclusive claim to this aircraft, saying the same was ordered by erstwhile AI - a claim rejected by the apex court.

The aviation ministry, which just weeks ago secured a mammoth Rs 42,000 crore bailout for debt-ridden AI, is fuming at this "completely unjustified" strike. "Following the SC order, erstwhile AI pilots have no right to agitate on the issue of erstwhile IA pilots being sent for training on the Dreamliner in equal numbers. About 22 pilots of AI (international) reported sick minutes after the meeting ended. We will not subject passengers to uncertainty this time and close the international operations of AI. This is not how anyone should behave after tonnes of taxpayers’ money is being used to save the airline," a senior official said.

An IPG member said they were looking to secure their future as the B-787 was ordered for their career progression. "If half of those planes go to IA pilots, then our career progression gets stuck. We had prepared a draft that secured our interests but neither the management nor the ministry accepted it," the source said.

Sources said the ’enmity’ between AI and IA pilots has reached such levels that the AI flights supposed to fly to Singapore last week with IA pilots (who were going there for training on the Dreamliner) was cancelled to ensure that the latter don’t reach there!

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MUMBAI: The rupee posted its biggest percentage gain against the dollar in six weeks on Monday after the country postponed controversial rules on foreign taxation by a year, helping soothe worries about flows.

The rupee extended gains in the afternoon session after Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told lawmakers that India will delay the General Anti-Avoidance Rule (GAAR) until fiscal 2013/14.

The local currency had already been propped up in morning trade by expectations of a more active central bank, with dealers saying the Reserve Bank of India had likely sold dollars soon after trade opened.

On Friday, the central bank on Friday announced measures to bolster currency inflows, signaling its intention to prop up a rupee that had taken a hit in recent weeks due to the uncertainty over GAAR and the concerns over India’s fiscal and economic outlooks.

The main stock index, which was down as much as 1.9 percent in early trade, reversed losses to gain 0.5 percent.

"With GAAR implementation deferred by a year, inflows are likely to resume in the coming days, pushing USD/INR lower," Standard Chartered Bank said in a note.

The rupee rose 1.08 percent against the dollar, its biggest daily gain since March 27, to settle at 52.9050/9150 after falling to as low as 53.76 in intraday trade. It had closed at 53.47/48 on Friday.

Standard Chartered analysts expect immediate psychological support for the pair at 52.50, with a break of that leading to a test of 51.98, the 38.2 percent Fibonacci retracement of the up-move from 48.85 to 53.92.

Analyst don’t expect significant falls in USD/INR over the longer-term, however. Worries about India, especially about its widening current account deficit, are unlikely to spur inflows, despite the removal of GAAR as a near-term risk, traders said.

The global risk environment is also worsening, as seen on Monday when the euro fell to a three month low following Greek and French election, while the disappointing U.S. jobs data is also adding to the caution.

The RBI’s actions on Friday to relax the interest rate ceiling on certain foreign currency banks deposits of banks are unlikely to help the rupee, analysts added, while the central bank also has limited firepower for more forex interventions.

The one-month offshore non-deliverable forward contracts were at 53.23. In the currency futures market, the most-traded near-month dollar-rupee contracts on the National Stock Exchange, the MCX-SX and the United Stock Exchange all ended around 53.19 on a total volume of $5.25 billion.