76 flights cancelled: AI strike continoues

New Delhi: Air India has cancelled 76 domestic and international flights scheduled for Wednesday on its network in wake of the strike by 20,000 employees of the national carrier who are protesting against gag order, issued by the airline management, following the Mangalore air crash.
"We have cancelled a total of 76 flights scheduled to be operated on domestic as well as international sectors from Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore on May 26," an airline official said.
The airline has decided to cancel these flights after reviewing the situation of the availability of the executive engineers, who are not part of the employees' unions.
No flight could be operated until it is certified by an aircraft engineer. Since the number of executive engineers are less so Air India decided to cancel these 76 flights, said the official.





The national carrier has cancelled 24 of its flights from Delhi, 37 from Mumbai, six from Kolkata, seven from Chennai and two from Bangalore.





The flights that are cancelled from Delhi on Wednesday include: IC 134 to Mumbai via Bhopal-Indore, IC 409 and IC 415 to Patna, IC 411 and IC 811 to Lucknow, IC 413 and IC 813 to Kathmandu, IC 445 to Ludhiana, IC 471 to Mumbai via Jodhpur -Udaipur.





AI 480 to Singapore, AI 638 to Amritsar, AI 747 and IC 895 to Dubai, IC 817 and IC 861 to Ahmedabad, IC 821 to Jammu-Srinagar, AI 841 to Abu Dhabi, IC 849 to Pune, AI 853 to Bangkok, IC 864 to Chandigarh, IC 869 to Raipur-Nagpur, IC 885 to Muscat, IC 889 to Guawahati-Imphal and IC 896 to Jaipur.





From Mumbai three flights to Ahmedabad; six to Delhi, four to Chennai, two each to Bangalore, Goa, Hyderabad, Nagpur, Muscut and Cochin, and one each to Bangkok, Dubai, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, Kozikode, Aurangabad, Lucknow, Varanasi, Rajkot, Jamnagar, Jaipur, Raipur, Bhubaneshwar, Udaipur and Jodhpur were also cancelled.





National carrier has cancelled its six flights from Kolkata to Agartala, Bagdogra, Silchar, Dibrugarh, Imphal and Port Blair, while seven flights from Chennai to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Mumbai, Coimbatore, Bhubaneshwar, Bangalore-Cochin, and Bangalore-Trivandrum.





Two flights from Bangalore to Mumbai and Male in Maldives were also cancelled, the official said.





On Tuesday, over 20,000 employees went on a flash strike to protest Air India's gag order that hit flight operations. Management has threatened stern action including termination of service if the agitation continued.