Public sector airline Air India (AI) on Saturday operated only 39 flights on its domestic routes of the 225 regular flights which it operates daily, as the strike by a large section of its pilots entered its fourth day.
Among major airports, Mumbai airport was the worst hit, with only five flights taking off by noon during the day instead of the over 40 flights which it generally operates.
While 21 flights took off from Delhi airport instead of 60 flights, only six flights took off from Kolkata instead of 21 flights, which the carrier operates from this airport on a daily basis.
AI has combined multiple flights to important destination like Delhi into one and all passengers in that sector are being accommodated.
An AI spokesperson said, ?We have curtailed more than 52% of our domestic flights and are operating on only the metro city routes. Under the contingency plan, we have reduced the number of flights as we don?t have any pilots.?
He said AI?s subsidiary Alliance Air is still active with 100 flights on the national network. ?The airline had since Thursday adopted a reduced operations plan, where fewer flights by wide-bodied aircraft would be operated,? he said.
The disruption of flights at various airports began on Wednesday when over 600 pilots attached to the Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), a union of pilots from the erstwhile Indian Airlines before it merged with AI in 2007, struck work demanding salaries similar to that of AI Pilots.
Talks of negotiations between the AI management and ICPA have failed and pilots have refused to report to work despite stern warnings of sacking more pilots by AI.
The carrier has already on Thursday and Friday sacked six pilots from the ICPA on charges of spearheading the strike. AI has already appointed an expert committee headed by retired judge DN Dharmadhikari to look into the pay parity issue between the erstwhile Indian Airlines and AI. The committee will submit its report by September this year.
Civil aviation minister Vayalar Ravi has also condemned ICPA pilots for causing such a disruption nationwide. After a cabinet briefing on Saturday, the minister said, ?Nobody can dictate terms to the government, especially a few pilots. They are one of the highest paid people in this country.?