Over 90 flights cancelled after crew’s ‘mass sick leave’

NEW DELHI: Poor staff management continues to hit Tata Group-run airlines, leaving thousands of passengers stranded at airports. After last month’s fiasco at Vistara, now Air India Express was forced to cancel more than 90 international and domestic flights from Tuesday evening to Wednesday night.

The cancellation came after a section of senior crew members, who allege mismanagement at the airline, went on a “mass sick leave”.

Going ahead, flight disruption is expected to continue for some time at the low-cost carrier.

Air India Express CEO Aloke Singh, in an address to employees on Wednesday, said that since last evening, over a hundred of their cabin crew colleagues have reported sick prior to their rostered flight duty, at the last minute, severely disrupting our operations. Because this action was mostly by colleagues assigned L1 role, the impact was disproportionate, disrupting 90+ flights even though other colleagues reported for duty, added Singh.

“The disruptions have cascaded across the network, forcing us to curtail the schedules over the next few days. We had to do this to cope with the non-availability of crew and to recover schedules…A curtailed schedule is being rolled-out for the next few days,” said Singh.