New aviation minister holds meet to hear out grievances

MUMBAI: At the 22nd floor conference room of the Air India headquarters in Nariman Point, it was a day of hearing grievances and recommendations as the new civil aviation minister, Vyalar Ravi, began his two-day marathon meetings with 15 unions of the merged national carrier on Wednesday.
"This is the first time that a minister has called for a meeting with unions soon after joining office," said George Abraham, general secretary of Aviation Industry Employees' Guild, a recognised union of former AI employees."Generally, it is the other way round. We manage a meeting only after several requests," he added. During the two-day meet, union leaders will discuss issues like merger, integration, salary disparity, etc.
The meetings scheduled to run from 9.30 am to 6.30 pm for two days will see 15 of Air India's recognised and unrecognised union leaders discussing the issue of merger, integration and turn around with the minister. The Indian Pilots Guild, another union of former Air India pilots , is expected to bring up the issue of air safety circulars that were issued by the airline last year but were later only to withdrawn later on orders from the aviation regulator Among the other issues that will feature in the discussions are ways to improve day-to-day functioning of the airline, salary disparity etc.