Posted: September 9th, 2009 - 9:21am by Doug Powell

If the president of the newly formed Jet Airways pilots' union is to be believed, the reason for some 400 of its members falling "sick" Tuesday, perhaps, was food poisoning.

"We are not on strike. This is an individual decision by each pilot," said Girish Kaushik, president of the National Aviators Guild, after member pilots reported sick and inconvenienced some 20,

Asked if it was not too much of a coincidence that so many pilots reported sick at the same time, Kaushik told IANS,

"We could all have had food poisoning. That's why we all could have become ill."

The civil aviation ministry has taken strong exception to what it calls a "wildcat" strike.