Continuing with its tough stance, the Air-India management on Friday said that disciplinary action would be taken against the 46 suspended pilots and the derecognised Indian Pilots Guild members would have to submit a written undertaking before 5 p.m. on Saturday on flying duties.

"All these pilots will have to give us an undertaking that they will take the assigned flights and undertake training for CAT III when deputed for which no compensation will be paid," A-I's public relations director told newspersons in Mumbai.

Asked about the 27 suspended pilots, Bhargava said as per the court order on Friday all of them "will have to put in written representations individually explaining as to why they did not report for duty and the management will permit them to join depending upon the exigencies of the work."

Asked whether the pilots would be rostered for flights, Bhargava said: "At the moment the requirement is less since we have curtailed flights to the Far East, including Hong Kong and Singapore. At the moment with a curtailed schedule we see an excess of pilots," he said.

Bhargava said the IPG on Friday wrote a letter to the management that "in national interest the managing committee was withdrawing all its directions and agree to resume flight duties immediately."

"We had asked for this on April 26, when the civil aviation secretary K Roy Paul, who is also the Air-India chairman, met IPG leaders and they should have agreed instead of causing financial loss to the airline," he said.

Bhargava also said it was difficult to specify the loss suffered by the airline due to this, but said, "We are working on it taking into consideration the revenue loss because of cancellation of flights to the Gulf."

Bhargava said out of the 35 pilots who had reported for duty yesterday, a couple of them were suspended, but they have since given an undertaking and accordingly rostered for flights.

He said the schedule as per the contingency plan would now continue till May 7 and it would take a little less than a week to put the original schedule back on the computer system.

Bhargava said apart from the retired pilots, who have been taken on a short-term contract, the recruitment of pilots of Indian origin will also continue.

He said the departmental heads at a meeting endorsed the stand taken by the civil aviation ministry and the management and were unanimous that action against the unionised pilots continue.