Tuesday, December 22, 2015

AI flights delayed as service engineers continue protests after colleague’s death

MUMBAI: Air India flight operations were hit on Monday after the airline's service engineers, who lost a colleague last week in a gruesome accident, continued to stay off certain duties to pursue their demand for better working conditions. The work load of readying aircraft for depature and giving engine start-up clearance fell onto the airline's aircraft maintenance engineers who in turn decided to go by the book and handle only one departure at a time. The delayed departures left thousands of passengers stranded across airports in the country.

Air India denied that its operations have been hit. However, the display board at the Mumbai airport told a different story. Among the departures out of Mumbai which were delayed were the ones to Udaipur (AI 643), Goa (AI 661), Rajkot (AI 665), Delhi (AI 660), Nagpur (AI 629), Bangalore (AI 607), Hyderabad (AI 619). There were flights which left on time as well, for instance AI 687 to Delhi departed at its scheduled time of 4pm. Among the worst hit was the flight to Udaipur which was delayed by over four hours, Bangalore which had a two-hour delay. Most of the other flights departed an average of an hour behind schedule.
21/12/15 The Times Of India
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