Air India management today informed the Bombay High Court that they have deferred the pilot training programme for Boeing 787 Dreamliner by about a month. The court was hearing a petition filed by the Indian Pilots Guild (IPG) challenging the decision of airlines management to draw equal number of pilots from the erstwhile Air India and Indian Airlines for training for the new Boeing 787.

A vacation bench of Justices Roshan Dalvi and Amjad Sayed adjourned the matter till 14th of this month. The matter will be heard by the regular bench. In its petition, the Indian Pilots’ Guild (IPG) has alleged discrimination on part of the airlines management in giving opportunities for career progression to the pilots of the erstwhile Indian Airlines.

The IPG has contended that the experience of Indian Airlines pilots is far less than that of the Air India pilots and has sought that the 1:1 policy should not be implemented. It says that only AI pilots should be assigned duty on these new advanced aircraft.

The training of the first batch of pilots of Indian Airlines was scheduled to start from tomorrow.