New Delhi: A strike by nearly 700 pilots demanding pay reforms on Thursday forced flag carrier Air India to announce that it will not accept any bookings till May 3, but the company said it would not give in to the pressure.

The pilots, who began their protest on Wednesday, defied the Delhi High Court’s order of calling off the strike and received an earful for it on Thursday. They announced they would now move to the Supreme Court to get their demands met.

Air India management decided to play it hard and fired two more pilots on Thursday bringing the toll to eight, as Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi reiterated his promise of backing their decision.

At least 40 pilots roped in by Air India to substitute the nearly 700 pilots on strike demanding pay reforms joined the protest ‘unofficially’ on Thursday, media reports said, as the boycott entered the second day in direct confrontation with a court order.

Over 50 Air India flights were cancelled by Thursday noon.

“We will go to the Supreme Court against the high court order,” said the striking pilots at a press conference.

“We apologise for causing inconvenience to our passengers. We are not responsible for flight cancellations. But we can’t withdraw our strike until our demands are met,” said the pilots.

“Corruption at management level should be removed and pay of all Air India pilots should be uniform. We want parity in working conditions,” they said.

The pilots, most of them from the domestic carrier Indian which completed its merger with Air India earlier this year, demand a similar pay structure to AI personnel which includes a larger fixed salary component.

They allege their salaries are getting hit by their largely variable pay structure, which is based on the number of flights, since the management was under-utilising the loss-making airline’s fleet and personnel and had cut down flights by 30 to 40 percent.

But the Delhi High court slammed the protesting pilots for the direct disobedience of its order. At the hearing of the case, a lawyer representing the pilots said that they would not be able to fly aircrafts whilst in "such a disturbed mental state".

The court, however, trashed the excuse saying, "If you come down to this level, no court of the country will accept your defence. You have the right to challenge the order, but you have no right to defy it."

Reports said at least 26 flights out of Mumbai and 28 flights out of Delhi were cancelled by Thursday morning.

On Wednesday, at least 36 flights from Delhi and ten from Mumbai were cancelled, leaving hundreds of passengers in a fix. Air India authorities maintained that international flights were not affected.

Air India management retaliated by sacking six pilots, derecognising the union Indian Commercial Pilot's Association (ICPA) and sealing its offices. It said the strike wasn’t legal since the union had promised the Delhi High Court that it wouldn’t stop work.

“Striking pilots are behaving in an irrational manner, especially at a time when the airline is in such a financial trouble,” said Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi said on Wednesday, adding that it was an unfair demand put forward by people who already have salaries over Rs 2 lakhs a month.

“Pilots can’t dictate terms to Air India,” said the Minister, promising to back any decision the management took over resolving the conflict. Air India on Wednesday said it had decided to rope in 150 executive pilots to soften the blow from the personnel-shortage.