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Air India has implemented a contingency plan that will see the airline operate daily return flights on the Delhi-Paris-New York, Delhi-Frankfurt-Chicago and Delhi-London sectors between May 16 and May 20.
Meanwhile, The Civil Aviation Minister, Mr Ajit Singh, informed the Lok Sabha that Air India will have to perform to get its bailout package. The Cabinet had approved a Rs 30,000-crore package for Air India last month.
Replying to a debate, Mr Singh said, the national carrier lost Rs 150 crore due to the ongoing pilots' strike. He assured the striking pilots that he would look into their grievances unconditionally, but first they will have to report back to duty. He also said that if pilots report back to duty, the Air India management won't be vindictive.
CONTINGENCY PLAN
Meanwhile, the company's contingency plan comes into effect from Wednesday when the Pilots' agitation will enter the tenth day. All these days have seen regular long haul flights operated by the airline being affected.
The contingency plan includes daily return flights from Mumbai to Singapore, Bangkok and Dubai, and from Delhi to Singapore, Bangkok, Dubai, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Dammam and Muscat. In addition, the airline will operate daily return flights from Chennai to Singapore, Muscat and Dubai.
It will also offer connections on the Bengaluru-Male, Bengaluru-Thiruvananthapuram-Male, Visakhapatnam-Hyderabad-Dubai, Kochi-Sharjah, Chennai-Thiruvananthapuram-Sharjah, Kozhikode-Sharjah and Kozhikode-Dubai sectors.
There will be twice weekly operations on Mumbai-Hyderabad-Jeddah, Kochi-Kozhikode-Jeddah, Mumbai-Riyadh, Riyadh-Kochi, Delhi-Tokyo and Delhi-Riyadh sectors.
The decision to implement the contingency plan comes in the back drop of the airline cancelling 20 flights on Tuesday including some domestic flights that would have continued as international flights. From Delhi flights to Hong Kong, Jeddah, Paris and Frankfurt were cancelled. Air India also did not operate services to Newark, London and Riyadh from Mumbai.
Air India Express flights between Thiruvananthapuram-Dubai, Madurai-Mumbai, Calicut-Kuwait and Mangalore-Doha-Bahrain were also cancelled.
Meanwhile, the Joint Forum of Guilds, Unions and Associations of Air India has written to the Civil Aviation Minister offering its services to mediate between the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Air India Management and Indian Pilots Guild (IPG). The current agitation is being led by the IPG.
In a communication, the Forum has said that it would like to express its pain at the manner in which Air India has been “paralysed” by the on going agitation of the IPG.
Seven associations of Air India including Air India Service Engineers Association, Air India Employees Union, Air India Aircraft Engineers Association and Air Corporations Employees Union are all members of the Forum.
IN PARLIAMENT
Parliament witnessed uproar on Air India issue. The BJP and along with CPI(M), CPI and BJD served a privilege notice against the Civil Aviation Minister for talking about policy matters outside Parliament when it is in session. This matter is under consideration of the Lok Sabha Speaker.
Meanwhile, during a discussion in Lok Sabha, BJP along with Shiv Sena slammed the Government for not resolving the Air India crisis. They also demanded CBI inquiry into irregularities and steps to end the strike.
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