Asia Bizz: India’s largest airline, Air India (AI), has resumed its flight operations after a ten-day pilots’ strike was called off on Saturday. The strike resulted in India’s oldest airline suffering losses worth millions of dollars.
Photo: PTI
The pilots’ strike was called off by the Indian Commercial Pilots’ Association, which represents pilots belonging to the national-carrier, after the Indian government assured that they will look into the demands and grievances of the pilots. Around 700 pilots went on strike and demanded wage parity with their counterparts who fly on international routes.
The airline told the media that the pilots have reported back to work and that they will be stepping up operations on busy routes. Thousands of passengers were affected by the strike, which took place at a time when the load is amongst the highest in the year in India as a result of the annual summer vacations.
The union leaders representing the Air India pilots said that they backed down from their demands at midnight on April 27.
But the airline will get back to it’s normal capacity only within the next 48 hours.
During the strike, around 200 Air India flights were cancelled daily, and new reports state that Air India suffered a loss of a whopping Rs. 1.30 billion.
To compensate for the recurring losses, Air India plans on launching two wide-body aircrafts on it’s high traffic domestic routes, and these new planes could possibly be rolled out in the coming weeks.
