'Employees Sacked, Flights Curtailed': Air India Express In Damage Control Mode After 'Mass Sick Leave'

Air India Express terminated several employees and curtailed many flights after its cabin crew took "mass sick leaves" majorly disrupting operations.

The Air India Express swung into damage control mode after it was forced to cancel over 90 flights as cabin crew reported "mass sick leaves". The air career sacked several employees and the airline CEO, Aloke Singh said that flights will be curtailed for the next few days to cope with the non-availability of crew members. 

On Thursday, around 25 employees were terminated by the airline after they didn't report to work and "due to their behaviour, thousands of passengers suffered," reported ANI quoting sources as saying. 

In a message to the company staff, Singh said that more than 100 cabin crew members have reported sick prior to their rostered flight duty since the last evening "at the last minute, severely disrupting our operations".

"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," Singh said. 

According to a PTI report quoting sources as saying, the regional labour commission will seek inputs from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation in the ongoing conciliation process concerning the dispute between the airline and the section of the cabin crew. 

Aviation regulator DGCA has also been made a party to the conciliation process to seek inputs with respect to various regulations, the PTI report added. 

On Wednesday, Congress MP KC Venugopal wrote to Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia to intervene urgently in the matter and resolve the issue at the earliest. 

"Air India Express is a low cost airline that is essential to connect our hardworking middle class workers across the world to their homeland," he said. 

"When 80+ flights are cancelled due to employees’ strikes, it causes huge agony to our fellow citizens, especially those in the Middle East," the Congress MP said further. 

Thousands of passengers were left stranded due to the cancellation of flights. DPAP chief Ghulam Nabi Azad was also one of the passengers affected after his flight from Delhi to Srinagar was cancelled. 

 "...I was supposed to leave in the morning. But I am now leaving on an IndiGo flight after sitting here for 3-4 hours," Azad said on Wednesday. 

".If the flights were cancelled, they should have informed us in the morning itself. Why did they fool everyone?...Air India should be shut...Air India's basic culture is bad, nothing will become of it...," he added.