Air Services Normal, Ia Review Meeting In Delhi Today

Normalcy was restored in air services yesterday despite a work to rule agitation by the National Airport Authority Association officers continuing.

An Indian Airlines official at the airport here said that all flights were on time, barring normal delays. The Indian airlines engineers did not delay the flight . The engineers have also clarified that they are not on strike or on a go slow .

A Jet Airways official stationed at the airport said that Jet Airways too did not see any exceptional delays in flights . He explained that that Indian Airlines flights were delayed in the last few days due some kind of agitation by the IA engineers. The National Airport Authority agitation does not delay flights since they do not control the air traffic like the ATC. The authority officers are essentially responsible for maintenance of equipment and the airport facilities in general.

 

The IA official said that the Delhi Pune flight was delayed by over 3 hours due to certain availability and engineering problems with the aircraft . However, he maintained that no other flight witnessed any exceptional delays.

In Mumbai, the threat by the Indian Airlines management to close down its operations if the aircraft maintenance engineers did not call off their agitation seemed to have the desired effect yesterday, with the airline operating most of its flights on time.

Only three flights out of Delhi and one out of Mumbai were delayed, according to an ia official.

Meanwhile, IA chairman and managing director P C Sen has called a meeting of the four regional directors and general managers (engineering) in New Delhi today to review the situation. Though the All India Aircraft Engineers Association has denied that it had launched any go-slow agitation, the past fortnight has seen innumerable flight delays resulting in the commercial staff facing the wrath of the passengers.

The four-day-old work-to-rule agitation called by Airports Authority of India Officers Association here was yesterday suspended with effect from 1500 hours.

Association regional secretary K Anantha Mohan said here that the agitation was being suspended as talks were still continuing with the management for some of their demands, while some others had been partially met.

However, if the management conceded the unjustified demands of the air traffic controllers guild, giving it exclusive privileges, then the association members would be constrained to go on an agitation, he said.

The work-to-rule agitation of association did not affect flight schedules out of chennai airport.

The atc guild had already deferred its agitation on the same demand relating to wage and service conditions. Aais international airports division officers association did not go ahead with its one-day mass casual leave programme yesterday following the managements assurance that it would meet their demand for pay parity with aai officers association.