Air India staff unions express happiness over Tata Sons winning bid for airline

Mumbai - 'The Tata group is well known for taking care of its employees'

Several employee unions of Air India on Friday expressed happiness over the carrier’s earlier owner Tata Sons winning the bid to acquire the national carrier. After a marathon disinvestment process, which was reinitiated in January last year, the government on Friday announced that Tata Sons’ winning bid of Rs18,000 crore was higher than the reserve price of Rs12,906 crore set by it.

“We are most happy to hear that it will be the Tata group that is taking us over. We look forward to giving this company our best.

“And, in return, we are sure that the Tata group will ensure that a mutually beneficial working relationship will be kindled over the years,” said a committee member of the Indian Pilots’ Guild, the Boeing pilots’ union of Air India.

Separately, the Guild in a tweet said, “@GuildPilots is proud that @airindiain is an airline founded by India’s first licensed pilot and that the airline is going back to the Tata Group... We look forward to being a part of the #tatafamily.”

The Indian National Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), the Airbus pilots’ body of Air India, said it has great hopes from the new employer.

“At least, Air Indians will have better times ahead. He said that the jobs of the pilots and engineers are secured, It is the other categories who might have difficulty but I think the government must have made some provisions to see that their jobs are safe,” Nandan said.