Air India curtails flights due to cabin crew shortage

Air India has cancelled or temporarily withdrawn as many as 12 flights from its domestic and international network, which include services to Kabul and Kuala Lumpur, due to shortage of cabin crew.

The now derecognised Air Corporation Employees Union (ACEU) had in March threatened to strike work, demanding recruitment of cabin crew in view of the manpower crunch.

"The airline has withdrawn as many as 12 flights across its network due to persistent constraint of cabin crew," airline sources said in Mumbai.

Manpower crunch was hiting flights operation badly as frequent disruptions were being caused by non-availability of cabin crew when flight slots demanded, they said.

"The airline has withdrawn its Delhi-Kabul-Delhi flight IC-843/844 between June 12 and July 15 on account of this shortage only," the sources said.

Besides, flight IC-955/956 Chennai-Kuala Lumpur-Chennai, was operated only on June 19 and 20, while it would continue to remain non-operational till July 15, they said.

At the same time, the Bangalore-Singapore-Bangalore flight AI-444/445 has not been operating since June 14 and would fly only after July 15.

The airline's New Delhi-Kathmandu service has also been temporarily withdrawn till July 15.

On the domestic network, while two flights on Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi sector have been pulled out of the schedule, IC-909 Trivandrum-Bangalore-Chennai-Trivandrum, IC-519 Cochin-Chennai-Bangalore-Cochin and IC-519/520 Cochin-Bangalore-Cochin would also not operate between June 11 and July 15, the sources said.

IC-163/164 Mumbai-Goa-Mumbai has been cancelled till July 15, they said.

In addition, it has deployed an Airbus A-319 instead of Airbus A-320 (which has 30-40 seats more) to operate on the Delhi-Ahmedabad-Delhi and Delhi-Mumbai sectors.