Close to a fourth of Air India's planes grounded: Pilots' Association

The Indian Commercial Pilots' Association has written to Air India reminding it that close to a fourth of the airline's fleet is currently grounded due to a lack of spares.

"It is disheartening to note the sorry state of the aircraft operated by Air India and the lack of maintenance for want of spares, planning, coordination and finance," the letter said.

"40%, yes 40%, of the Airbus A321 fleet is grounded at various stations for lack of spares... Such a high percentage of this aircraft type being grounded is criminal at the very least!" the letter, written on Sunday, added.

"Considering the high seating capacity, there is a significant loss of revenue happening on a daily basis," it said.

The letter goes on to say similar things about Air India's A 319, A 320 and 777 fleet.

"Overall, almost 23% of the Air India fleet is grounded for lack of spares. To put this into perspective aircraft worth approximately 3.6 billion USD or approximately 25,000 crores INR (at today's list price) are lying idle in the hangar," the letter from the pilots' association said.

"Since we are an airline and our primary business is to fly planes and since we have incurred huge debt to procure aircraft, which is impossible to pay interest, is there any reason why these aircraft continue to remain grounded? All of this is having a significant impact on the bottom line of Air India. Is our management unable to prioritize expenditure?" it added.

The letter did not say whether the lack of maintenance was having an impact on safety.