Air Indiad strike: Passengers left in lurch

Sheikh Dawood, 26, came to Mumbai from Muscat by an Air India flight on September 24. Though he was supposed to take a connecting flight to Visakhapatnam the same day, he is still waiting at the airport lounge.

Dawood underwent a four-day quarantine for suspected swine flu. On his release on Tuesday, he was told that his flight to Vizag, scheduled to depart at 9:30am, had been cancelled.

Several other passengers were inconvenienced as the strike called by Air India pilots entered its fourth day. As many as 180 pilots refused to report for duty, and 77 domestic and 14 international flights, including 35 from Mumbai, were cancelled across India. The airline has now suspended booking of tickets till further notice.

Although Air India accommodated most passengers on other airlines, many like Dawood were left in the lurch. “Airport officials say the flight may leave tomorrow,” said Dawood. “I don’t have money to stay in a hotel, so I have to stay in the waiting area.”

Supriya Jain, 35, who was to catch a Mumbai-Jaipur flight, waited for two hours before she was accommodated on a Jet Airways flight. “I  rushed to the airport only to find my flight was cancelled,” she said.

Travel agents said they were able to accommodate people as it was a weekday. “Getting tickets on the weekend is difficult,” said Ajay Prakash, general secretary, Travel Agents Federation of India.