Air India cancels 10 flights out of Chennai (Lead)
April 28th, 2011 - 7:56 pm ICT by IANSChennai, April 28 (IANS) The ongoing strike by around 600 pilots has forced Air India to cancel 10 flights out of here while operating five flights by adding more destinations to their respective routes, an official said.
The airline flew its Air India Express aircraft to Singapore with passengers in the afternoon.
Air India spokesperson here told IANS, the airline extended Chennai-Bangalore flight up to Mumbai and Kolkata-Chennai flight to Bangalore.
He said, on an average, the airline operated around 30 flights out of Chennai.
The cancelled flights included those to Singapore, Port Blair, Hyderabad, Delhi, Kochi, Bhubaneshwar, Thiruvananthapuram and a special flight to Madurai,
The pilots of the Indian Commercial Pilots Association, once on the payroll of erstwhile Indian Airlines, struck work Tuesday midnight demanding parity in pay with their counterparts in Air India and other issues related to work conditions.
They have since also demanded that the airline reinstate the six pilots who were sacked and two others who were suspended later Wednesday, and want the union to be recognised again and its offices de-sealed.
Coming in support of the striking pilots, D. Sudhakara Reddy, founder national president of Air Passengers Association of India, told IANS that the airline’s management and the central government were to be blamed for the strike,
It was not the pilots’ fault. The pilots’ issues were not sorted out for over four years, he said.
He said there was a disparity in the wages paid to pilots of erstwhile Indian Airlines and that of Air India.
According to him, Air India was losing out not because of the strike but because of government giving out lucrative flight rights to other airlines and inefficient use of its resources.
“The Chennai-Delhi flight at 8.40 a.m. in the morning (Friday) has low load factor of around 20 percent. The flight is supposed be a connecting one to Paris. There is a flight to Delhi at 6.30 a.m. For international travellers waiting for one or two hours is not an issue,” Reddy said.
According to a striking pilot, the wage disparity between officials of erstwhile Indian Airlines and Air India was across cadres.
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Tags: afternoon air, air india, air india express, air passengers, bhubaneshwar, central government, commercial pilots, counterparts, disparity, hyderabad, indian airlines, kochi, national president, parity, pilots association, port blair, singapore port, spokesperson, striking pilots, thiruvananthapuram