Air Indias operations out of the Indira Gandhi International Airport and other airports across the country continued to be affected on the fourth day of agitation by the national carriers executive pilots. While the airline has decided not to book any new passengers till further notice,six out of the 22 flights scheduled to fly out of Delhi on Tuesday had to be cancelled. We have suspended booking of tickets till further notice in order to save passengers from inconvenience caused by the cancellations of flights, Air India Chairman and Managing Director Arvind Jadhav said. Over 60 executive pilots of the erstwhile Air India reported sick between Monday and Tuesday morning. So far,a total of 180 pilots of NACIL (I) have gone on sick leave,forcing Air India to curtail its flight schedule. We are trying to ensure that least inconvenience is caused to the passengers by giving them easy refunds and accommodating them on other flights, an AI spokesperson in New Delhi said. Affected flights included non-stop flights to New York and London from Delhi and Mumbai,and flights to Chicago from Delhi. Air India is keeping open its channels of communication with executive pilots so that those wishing to have their concerns addressed and clarified can do so, a communiqué issued by the airline said. The national carrier is trying to normalise operations after a section of pilots reported sick to protest against the 50 per cent cut in their productivity-linked incentives and payment of flying allowance. The number of bookings has gone down from 32,000 to 14,000 per day and the airline is incurring losses up to 30 per cent of the total revenue of Rs 40 crore every day.
