Air India flies stranded Indian cricket team to Colombo

Air India today operated a special flight on the Chennai-Bangalore-Colombo sector to facilitate the travel of the Indian cricket team, which was stranded because of the disruption in the operations of Jet Airways, whose agitating pilots have been on mass casual leave since yesterday.

Most of the Indian, including Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambir, Rahul Dravid, Ishant Sharma, Amit Mishra, Dinesh Karthik, Abhishek Nayar, Ashish Nehra, Yusuf Pathan and Praveen Kumar and coaches Gary Kirsten Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh boarded the aircraft at Chennai.

Others like captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, R P Singh and Suresh Raina, who represented Air India Red and Air India Blue teams in the final of the inaugural BCCI Corporate Trophy, boarded the flight from Bangalore.

The flight was operated with a Boeing 737-800 aircraft of Air India Express.

A spokesman for Air India said the airline decided to operate the special flight so as to ensure that the Indian team did not have to go through anxious moments resulting from cancellation of Jet Airways flights before participating in the Tri-Series Championship at Colombo.

The flight was operated to also reiterate that in times of crisis, Air India, as the national carrier, is the most dependable airline, he said.

NNN