Hundreds of passengers, including political leaders and workers, were left stranded and staged protests at various airports across the nation after Air India Express cancelled over 86 flights due to the cabin crew going on a "mass sick leave" on Tuesday night.
The major airports — Kochi, Calicut, Delhi and Bengaluru — witnessed chaotic scenes as most flight disruptions happened here. The international and domestic flights were cancelled after about 300 senior cabin crew members reported sick at the last minute and switched off their mobile phones. According to sources, southern regions have reported major cancellations.
Air India Express CEO Aloke Singh said there will be more curtailment of flights over the next few days amid cabin crew woes. "Flight curtailment being done to cope with non-availability of crew, recover schedules," the CEO said in a statement.
Many of them said the delayed flights could result in them losing their jobs as their work visas were about to expire while some political leaders and workers could not reach their destinations to attend the rally of their leaders in the upcoming fourth phase of the Lok Sabha elections.
Passengers also complained that the airline provided no accommodation, leaving them stranded until their rescheduled flight takes off. Some passengers claimed they were forced to spend the night at the airport. Some of them claimed that they were informed about the cancellations after the completion of security checks.
Taking note of the incident, the Ministry of Civil Aviation on Wednesday sought a report from Air India Express on cancellation of flights after a section of cabin crew reported sick evidently to protest against changes in the human resources policy. Meanwhile, Air India Express has offered a full refund or flight rescheduling but some passengers are demanding instant refunds and same-day rescheduling.
This is the second time in about a month that a Tata Group owned airline is facing flight disruptions (Vistara too had to cancel flights due to crew unavailability in the first week of April).
Among thousands of flyers who were hit by the sudden cancellations of the Air India Express flights on Wednesday was Jammu & Kashmir former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad who said Air India should be shut and nothing will come out of it because its culture is bad. The stinging comment came from a former Civil Aviation Minister who said he never travelled by Air India.
Videos of furious passengers gathered at Delhi, Kochi, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram airports have gone viral on social media.
The videos show flyers in heated arguments with airport staff as they claimed their flights were cancelled last minute.
In Delhi, a video showed a group of passengers swarming the Air India Express counter and shouting at the ground official with their luggage in their hands.
Several flyers took to social media platforms on May 8 to complain about the sudden cancellation of flights. In response to a passenger's post on X, Air India Express apologised and said the flight was cancelled "due to operational reasons". A section of our cabin crew has reported sick at the last minute, starting last night, resulting in flight delays and cancellations.
An Air India Express spokesperson said the airline is engaging with the cabin crew members to understand the reasons for reporting sickness and also apologised for the flight disruptions.
In a letter to Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, Congress leader KC Venugopal said the flight cancellations are causing agony to fellow citizens, especially those going to the Middle East.
He said Air India Express is a low cost airline that is essential to connect our hard working middle class workers across the world to their homeland. Hundreds of passengers were left stranded in various airports in the country including Delhi, Kochi, Kannur, Varanasi, and Thiruvananthapuram, he said, adding that flights from major international airports such as Sharjah, Muscat, Abu Dhabi and Bahrain to various sectors in the country were also cancelled.
