The striking employees, about half of Air India's staff strength, are affiliated to two major unions -- the ACEU and Aviation Industry Employees Guild (AIEG). The rest are members of other unions.

'We have been working hard and trying to help the management to overcome the losses in our airline. But the management is delaying and ignoring us. It is also reducing our salaries to half. This is not acceptable to us,' ACEU general secretary J.B. Kadian said earlier Tuesday.

He also stated that the government could decide on their pay cuts, not the airline.

Earlier, in July, the employees had gone on strike for two hours and staged demonstrations over the issue.