Air India cabin crew form NGO to tackle safety, fatigue

National carrier Air India’s cabin crew have formed an internal NGO comprising their crew members in order to support and guide the crew on various issues, including regulations, flight safety, health and rest.

Other private airline crew could also join the welfare initiative, said sources. The newly set up organisation will take up all safety and health-related issues of crew. Earlier, it was reported on several occasions that the crew of national carrier is struggling with fatigue and other health issues.

A highly-placed official in the airline told The Asian Age, “The NGO is being formed to give the crew a platform to address occupational safety and health-related issues.”

According to airline sources, in the last 12 months, as many as 300 cases have been reported in which cabin crew have complained to the airline of fatigue because of long flying hours and routes. The newly-formed NGO has been named as ‘DASH” and has 300 members, which includes 14 office bearers. According to sources, the DASH committee also includes a doctor as their health advisor, a retired high court judge as legal advisor, a lawyer and a chartered accountant.

An official linked to the NGO said, “We will collect data about the health of crew and then, seminars, camps and work shops will be organised to create awareness amongst the crew about occupational safety and health hazards.

However, chairman and managing director of Air India Ashwani Lohani refused to comment on the internal initiative of the airline crew.

While explaining the role of the initiative, one source told this newspaper that the first priority was to stop the new civil aviation requirements (CAR) of directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) which will come into effect in September, allowing airlines to put their flight attendants on punishing long schedules sans rest which could endanger both the safety and health of the crew.

For instance, under the current norms, flight attendants should not be rostered for more than two flights if these are operated between 2 am and 6 am. In comparison, the new norms allow airlines to roster flight attendants for up to six flights even when operating at night. Under the new rule, after seven days of work, crew should get 36 hours of rest, however, the weekly off can be cancelled.

“We will challenge the minimum crew complement, mandatory horizontal rest and oppose not providing a definition of weekly off and periodical rest,” said the source.

Mr Lohani also refused to comment on the 300 fatigue cases of cabin crew in the last 12 months in Air India. However, he said the airline was going through the process of increasing the number of cabin crew and the training process was going on. He said once the staff numbers go up, the health issues of the working crew due to long hours would be resolved.