Indian Airline industry-introduction, definition and overview about this industry. 2. Trade unions in Airline Industry- Explaining everything about unionism. How trade unions are formed? Rules/laws related to trade unions in Indian airline industry. 3 Collective Bargaining- How collective bargaining takes place in this industry. Rules/ laws related to this collective bargaining In this Industry. 4. Machinery for Settlement of Industrial Disputes 5. Workers’ Participation in Management 6. Grievance Redressed System 7. Discipline Handling 8.
Labor Laws 9. Some two examples of strikes/disputes that has been happened recently In this industry and discussing IR issues in them. Summed: Take one example. Parkas: take 2,4,6,8, one example Dead line: 27th Feb. 2014. Indian airline History Industry structure Industry definition Indian Airline Industry The history of Indian Airline goes back to 1910 when the young Maharaja of Patella, Plunder Sings sends his Chief Engineer to Europe for a study with orders to buy three planes, including a Bibelot monoplane and Farman biplanes, which arrive in the Punjab later that year.
The first commercial flight starts on February 18, 1911 when Henry Piquant, flayed a Hummer Biplane to carry mall from Allahabad to Main’ Junction, six miles away. The thing actually started in 1927 when Imperial Airways extends empire routes to India, connecting India with outside world. A De Havilland Hercules flies the Cairo-Baser-Karachi-Jodhpurs-Delhi route. It is also the first domestic passenger flight to be operated in India. In 1932 for JAR Data launches first scheduled airline, Data Airline, by piloting the first flight himself from Karachi to in Indian history.
In 1945 Decca airways Indian’s second domestic airline was formed y Ninja of Hydrated by owning 71% stake by him and remaining one by Data Sons. In 1947 Data airline changes its name to Air India. Followed by nationalization of airline in 1953. The industry structure remains same till 1990 when east west airline becomes first private player to fly after long haul, when Indian government decide to end the monopoly over domestic aviation. Current state- Indians civil aviation market is widely considered as 9th largest in the world in expected to be 3rd largest by 2020 according to Alit Sings.
Today Indian Aviation carries 121 million domestic and 41 million international passenger annually. As per Airport Authority of India (AI) there are 127 airports and has around 1091 registered aircrafts. Indian government formed a central body Directorate General of Civil Aviation (GAGA) is the regulatory body governing the safety aspects of civil aviation in India. This body is responsible for allocating licenses, registration of new player in industry maintaining safety and security of civil aviation as well as handling of industrial disputes if any.
Generally most of the Indian airlines has following structure in terms of employee- 1 . Line Personnel This is most generalized classification of employees in airline industry. Generally this division includes all employees from those who works in sales and marketing, safety personnel, flight attendants, engineering and maintenance and many more. Virtually one can assume that every working individual linked to airline industry directly or indirectly comes under this classification. 2. Operations This department is responsible for operating airlines fleet.
The employee are more concerned about the flight scheduling, delegating works to flight crews. These are also responsible for the designing policies and implementing those, adhering to security standards and government policies. These department also responsible for flight crew training both initial and recurrent training for pilots and flight attendants, and it establishes the procedures crews are to follow before, during and after each flight to ensure safety. 3. Staff Personnel These department generally concerned with administration of airline.
The employee handling issues like law, finance, accounting, HER, public relation can be categorized as a staff personnel. Generally these works in the corporate headquarter and can be categorized into seven broad categories finance & property, information services, personnel, medical, legal, public relations and planning. The basic aim of these employees to support the work of line personnel, ensure smooth running of organization, ensuring profits from operation. 4. Maintenance Maintenance constitute around 11 percent of airline employee and 10-15% of operating expenses.
Employees are generally responsible forked aircraft in safe, working order; ensure passenger comfort; preserve the airline’s valuable physical assets (its aircraft); and ensure maximum utilization of those assets, by keeping planes in excellent condition. Airlines typically have one facility for major maintenance work and aircraft modifications, called the maintenance base; larger airlines sometimes have more than one maintenance base. 5. Sales and Marketing This division concerns about promotional activities, ticket sales, pricing the flight tickets, corporate contacts and reservation and customer service.
These department Marketing and distribution channel also become part of this department. Apart from all those categories there are some more department which exists parallel like tickets and reservation retailers, some subcontractors but officially these are not qualified to be called as employee of an organization since most of the works done on tender basis and contract often valid for specified period. Collective Bargaining- It’s a Process of negotiation between employers and workers’ representatives for the purpose of establishing mutually agreeable conditions of employment.
Generally is collective because parties participating into the process are representative of big group. And it’s bargaining because its starts with proposal, counter proposal and so on to reach to the agreement. Generally there are following types of bargaining. Fig- collective Bargaining If we consider airline industry specific, history had cites the instances where our industry has gone through the each of these types in terms of collective bargaining. 1 . Distributive bargaining- the basic definition of distributive bargaining says that it involves haggling over distribution of surplus.
The issues covered like wages, bonuses, surplus and many more. Example- Kingfisher pilots strikes demanding payment of long pending salaries is excellent case of distributive bargaining. Kingfisher airlines was already occurring losses due to faulty management tactics and hence they were unable to pay the wages to most of the staff. When even after Visa Mall’s assurance management of kingfisher airline failed to pay the wages of employee on May 5, 2012 employee went on strike for demanding their salaries.
This is classic case of distributive bargaining. 2. Integrative bargaining- this may happen for betterment of both side the issues covered like better workplace, safety, education and training program etc. There are very few examples of this kind. Generally such bargaining happens with conciliation of both management and union body also both the parties are in a favor of the implementing the desired results. The issues includes like, technology used, security system, Air hostess conduct and code of conduct for employees. 3.
Attitudinal restructuring- this was mainly happen to reshape employee employer relation. The issues like trust, mistrust, management behaviors towards workman has to be reshaped due to changing global and local scenario. Example- the famous strike followed by collective bargaining agreement between Jet Airways management body change the way management body viewed the employee. Jet Airways fired employees to cut down cost followed by reinstatement but employee quickly unionize after that to ensure no more such incident should happen in near future. 4.
Intra-organizational bargaining-these mainly happen for having cohesiveness in the demand on both management and union side. There are often difference in pinion between many union bodies these need to sort out before placing demand to the management body in similar way some executive might share different views than other so these also need to be smoothen out before responding to the union’s demands. Example- Air Indian’s Move to cut the number of recognized union from 15 to 2 in order to facilitate the smooth decision making can be considered as bargaining under the Intra-organizational type.
Initially due to large no of union bodies there was a delay in decision making, both management body and Unions of Air India recognized this fact and decided to cut down the number of recognized onion. Case study- Jet Airways The Jet airways are constantly occurring losses since 2007-08, according to them buying Sahara was big strategic mistake. They wanted to grow exponentially but losses are also increasing in due course. In 2008 they enter into agreement with Visa Mall’s Kingfisher for operational tie ups. This is followed by the sacking of 1900 employee in order to switch to leaner business models.
These are temporary and probationary employees across the verticals. This move was criticized heavily both by government and regulatory bodies. It was in fact an example showcasing the importance of managing stakeholders in a change management plan. But within few days Mr.. Nearest Goal, Chairman, Jet Airways Reinstate 1900 sacked employees saying that he was unaware to whole episode, it’s Just unfair to everyone in business. The whole episode causes insecurity among the employees and they feel the need of union body to protect their interest.
This led to formation of National Aviators Guild the NAG.. On July 24 2009, the NAG -National Aviators Guild- was registered by the Regional Labor Commissioner. Captain Sam Thomas and one of his colleagues played a significant role in the formation of the Union. Fig- Major Events in Jet Airways case On July 31 , 2009 the two senior pilots of Jet Airways who were office bearer of newly formed NAG were dismissed by sending Just single line email. NAG issued strike notice against this on August 24, 2009 after several unfruitful attempt to have discussion with management body.
After this statement there were several efforts of meeting and discussion went futile with both bodies blaming each other for skipping the event. The meeting was to be mediated by central labor commissioner but Capita. Sam Thomas, Joint General Secretary of National Aviators Guild, claimed. “There are no talks so far. We have not got any invite from the management side showing their willingness to talk to us. ” The one more conciliation meeting under labor produce reason for sacking two pilots by September 7, they failed to comply and commissioner fixed next meeting on September 14.
A few days later Jet Airways terminated service of few more senior captain and Goal MD of Jet Airways caused further trouble by calling them as terrorists. Meanwhile he also announce that he is also bringing foreign pilots to resolve issues. In part of later negotiation between management body and the pilot association Jet Airways initially refused to take back hose four employees but later agreed on condition that they should dissolve union and should form association. Again this proposal was refused by pilot union.
Finally a draft was worked out in presence of congress leader Sandy Nirvana, representatives of the pilots and Jet Airways Chairman Nearest Goal. The management agrees to reinstate four employee by reconsidering wisdom of union. As a part of agreement both bodies agrees to form grievance committee which will look into matter like this. Under this agreement pilots also decided to Join the duty with immediate effect. The normal flight resumed the very next day and ground staff used picture with yellow roses as part of goodwill from management body.
Viewpoint: IR perspective- The whole issue describe how even a good Decision can turn into bad turmoil for whole company if not taken correctly. The decision to sack 1900 employees of Jet airways was taken back quickly but whole episode was good enough to cause feeling of insecurity among the employees. The further sacking of senior pilots and two more after that for unknown reasons stirred the situation rather than solving. The incident followed by strike notice by NAG and several failed negotiation between union and management bodies which leads to enormous losses for Jet Airways.
The negotiation went till the 7 the day of strike and finally comes to settlement on 10 septet. According to Mannish Sassafras, chairman of Bangor-based staffing solutions firm Team Lease, it was a Just case of wring execution he says “There is no question in my mind that Jet Airways executed what was a right decision the wrong way, it’s also clear that most of the sacked employees of Jet who have been taken back will not be around a year from now because the company handled them without dignity, respect or listening [to them].
If there could be proper meeting between management bodies and union leader the result could be sorted out very earlier. Also the hasty decision to sack 1900 employee without proper consideration of future outcome and other management consultant caused havoc for organization. This case also underline the importance of information flow across the organization. The statement of Mr.. Nearest Goal, Chairman, Jet Airways that he was unaware of whole incident itself says many things. The conflict between management views was the starting point for whole incident. The things never went well until government mediate between those parties.
