A Congress member today castigated the Air India management for stopping flights between Lakshadweep and Kerala,saying if a private operator can run its services,why cannot the national carrier. Raising the matter in the Lok Sabha during Zero Hour,Hamdullah Sayeed said Air India had discontinued its flights from the island territory to the Indian mainland on ground that it was making losses. On enquiry,I found out that the airline was losing only Rs seven crore on the Lakshadweep-Kerala route, he said. Maintaining that Air India was operating a 16-seater Beechcraft plane,Sayeed said Kingfisher Airlines,which was flying a 72-seater aircraft,was continuing to operate on the same route. Observing that these flights were aimed at ending the geographical isolation of the island from the mainland,he demanded immediate restoration of the Air India flights. Mahendrasinh Chauhan (BJP) said passengers of Air Indias Frankfurt-Ahmedabad flight were kept inside the aircraft at Mumbai for several hours recently and not provided food and even drinking water. He said the flight was diverted to Mumbai as the runway at Ahmedabad airport was blocked due to a technical fault in a Jet Airways aircraft which could not move out.
