Air India says normal domestic operations in few days

National carrier Air India today said it would resume normal services on domestic trunk routes with immediate effect as its executive pilots called off their four-day-old strike this morning and started returning to work.

A spokesperson for the loss-making airline said a flight restoration plan had been drawn up for its domestic operations, as part of which services on major and other routes would be restored at the earliest, keeping in view that tomorrow would mark the beginning of a long weekend.

However, the airline had cancelled as many as 111 flights in advance today, due to the non-availability of the pilots, so that passengers were not inconvenienced. The flights would be gradually restored, the spokesperson said.

As far as the international services were concerned, the spokesperson said Air India would be operating all long haul flights, barring the non-stop flights from Delhi and Mumbai to New York, from tomorrow, October 1.

The flights being operated include AI 127 on the Delhi / Frankfurt / Chicago sector, AI 191 on the Mumbai / Frankfurt / Newark sector, AI 131 on the Mumbai / London sector, AI 111 on the Delhi / London sector, AI 187 on the Amritsar / London / Toronto sector and AI 121 on the Ahmedabad / Frankfurt sector.

The effective date of resumption of the non-stop flights to New York from Delhi and Mumbai will be decided once the executive pilots, who had taken mass sick leave in the past few days, start reporting fit for duty, he added.

NNN