The Hindu Business Line : Air Sahara cancels 30 flights after pilots' mass sick leave

THE operations of Air Sahara were affected on Sunday after 30 of the airline pilots went on mass sick leave, forcing the airline to cancel 30 flights.

"Thirty flights were cancelled. 30 out of the 280 pilots in the system reported sick today. The important thing is that none of our passengers are stranded at any airport. We have put them on Jet Airways, Indian Airlines, and wherever we could find seats," Mr Alok Sharma, Executive Vice-President of Air Sahara said at a conference.

The airline is monitoring the situation closely and has already taken some preventive action to ensure that flight operations function smoothly.

"We are going to club some flights as a preventive measure... we have also decided to cancel the Delhi-Dibrugarh-Guwahati flight," Mr Sharma said.

Officials of Jet and Sahara have met with the pilots together and have shown them the roadmap and business plans for the merged entity. Jet Airways will operate an extra flight to accommodate Air Sahara passengers.

Air Sahara has a fleet of 27 aircraft that includes Boeing 737 and the smaller CRJ aircraft. The airline operates 134 flights offering almost 14,000 seats a day to 24 domestic and four international destinations.

Resentment among sections of the Air Sahara staff is said to have been brewing since late January when Jet Airways purchased the airline for $500 million. The deal, however, still has to be approved by the authorities.

At the time of the buyout, officials indicated that Jet Airways was likely to retain the services of the senior management, pilots, engineers, and technical staff of Air Sahara.

Sources indicated that the pilots were unhappy at the emoluments they would be getting from the new entity.

To get over the problem of pilots of one airline being poached by another, the Government had late last year planned to introduce a new rule whereby a pilot would be required to give six months' notice before leaving one airline to take up employment with another.

Our Mumbai Bureau reports:

The Delhi-Mumbai service of Air Sahara was severely affected in the morning.

With three morning flights from Delhi being cancelled, the returning flights could not be operated. According to Air Sahara staff at the airport, all the stranded passengers were transferred on to other flights.

Air Sahara's first flight to Delhi from Mumbai today was a 3:30 p.m. departure, which took off on schedule. The 6:30 departure was also on schedule, an airport official said.

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