Carrier plans to restart bookings for international flights as per earlier schedule
Despite their best intentions to call off their 58-day strike and return to work, the 340 Air India pilots may have nowhere to fly till early August. This is because the national carrier plans to restart bookings for its international flights as per earlier schedule only by this month-end or early August. In the process, Air India may stand to lose another R250-300 crore. So far, the national carrier has suffered a loss of around R550 crore due to the cancellation of international flights.
?The losses will continue in July as well because even if the pilots report back to work, it would take at least 20-25 days for them to get medical and other clearances to be declared fit to fly. So, there is no way we can avoid the revenue loss this month,? said a senior official in Air India.
According to officials, the national carrier may not even get back to its original number of flights that it used to fly before the strike. ?A committee was set up during the strike to rationalise the international routes. The committee’s report , which is yet to be finalised, would consider the profitability of routes as well. In case some routes are not sustainable, the rescheduling will be done accordingly,? the official said.
The carrier in May had announced an ?interim plan? for its international operations, under which it stopped flying to Hong Kong, Osaka, Seoul and Toronto. The airline, at present, flies only 38 services, compared to 45 flights before the strike. Air India’s load factor on international flights has also been hit due to future uncertainty. The airline official said though the effort would be to maintain the number of flights, there may be slight change in the routes. The carrier is losing about R10-12 crore every day due to the curtailed operations.
Meanwhile, the 400-plus members of Indian Pilots’ Guild (IPG) submitted their undertakings on ?agreeing to join work? in the Delhi High Court. The pilots, though, have expressed their willingness to join back duties, a lot would depend on the labour commissioner’s meeting on Friday, where both AI management and the pilots are going to meet for the conciliatory negotiation.