Industrial action by pilots has forced Air India to cancel flights today and reportedly suspend bookings for the next 15 days.
This is the fourth day of industrial action by the carrier's pilots, who are angry about the carrier's plans to reduce their allowances, say media reports from India.
"About 10 domestic flights to Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Guwahati, Mumbai and other west-bound destinations were cancelled besides five flights to Kabul, Kathmandu, New York, London and Chicago," an Air India official is quoted as saying. "The flights have been cancelled after the pilots of these flights reported sick."
Pilots have asked India's flag carrier to roll back the cuts, which vary between 25-50% of their flying allowance.
Last week, Air India announced plans to cut productivity-linked incentives and said that 7,000 employees would be affected. This was one of its steps to reduce costs after it made a loss of around 50 billion Indian rupees ($1 billion) for the year to 31 March.
The state-owned airline has been losing money for years and has asked the government for an equity infusion of 12.31 billion Indian rupees and a soft loan of 27.5 billion Indian rupees that will be repaid over 15 years. The government, in turn, has asked the carrier to come up with a cost-cutting and restructuring programme that will help it to return to profitability.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
