Air India operations yet to be normalised

New Delhi, May 7 (PTI) National carrier Air India
operations were yet to be normalised on Saturday after the
pilots called off their 10-day strike, as the airline had
stopped taking any bookings for over a week.
Airline officials said they had not been taking
bookings due to the strike and this had led to the
cancellation of about 90 per cent of its flights. Moreover, 60
aircraft of the airlines were grounded.
"If we don't have bookings, it is not wise to fly an
empty aircraft. We will now open bookings and start rostering
the pilots and other crew members. The process will take at
least two days to normalise", officials said.
The contingency plan, which was put in place for the
strike, is still in operation, they said.
Some flights will be programmed by the afternoon and
gradually the situation will improve, airline sources said.
Air India pilots had last night called off their
10-day-old strike that resulted in an estimated loss of over
Rs 150 crore after Government agreed to reinstate sacked and
suspended pilots and look into their demands within a
time-frame.
Over 800 pilots, belonging to the erstwhile Indian
Airlines and owing allegiance to the Indian Commercial Pilots
Association, as also the executive pilots, will return to
work, Capt A S Bhinder, the association president had said
last night.
Expressing happiness over the pilots ending their
stir, Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi had said, "Their is
no ill feeling and there will be no feeling of vengeance".
Asked about the demands of the pilots, he had said,
"interests of all sections of employees will be taken care of
by the Dharmadhikari Committee. ... We have received
representations from other sections of employees also and
asked them to approach the Committee".
It would submit its report in about four months, he
said.
The three-member Justice Dharmadhikari Committee, set
up to go into all merger related HR issues facing Air India
employees, has started its work and has already met a
cross-section of employees to elicit their views.
Bhinder, along with ICPA general secretary Rishabh
Kapur, had said "we have called off the strike as the
government has assured us that all the pilots sacked and
suspended during the stir would be reinstated and ICPA's
recognition restored".
Both the leaders, who signed the minutes of an
understanding reached with the Civil Aviation Ministry, said
the government also assured them that it would look into their
demand for probing the "irregularities that have taken place
in the airline".
The striking pilots had been demanding that all
sackings, suspensions and transfers effected during the strike
period be revoked, ICPA's recognition be restored, the
contempt of court petition filed by Air India management be
withdrawn, a CBI probe into the alleged corruption and
mismanagement be ordered and all other issues be tackled in a
time-bound manner.