Mumbai: Air India's ground staff on strike, off-duty workers called
What's the story
Following a strike by contractual ground staff of Air India Air Transport Services Limited (AIATSL), a subsidiary of Air India, several flights were delayed in Mumbai on Thursday.
Nearly 400 members went on strike as they were not paid Diwali bonuses.
As a result, Air India called off-duty permanent staff to work to help in the check-in process.
Here's more on this.
The impact
A number of international and domestic flights were delayed
The staff members who have gone on strike are responsible for checking-in of passengers, offloading bags, and cleaning of the aircraft.
As a result, flights were hit. As many as 10 domestic flights and three international flights were delayed
"The delay was up to three hours," a spokesperson of the national carrier said.
However, ANI reported 16 flights were delayed.
Information
After delay of seven hours, Bangkok bound flight departed
Reportedly, a Bangkok bound flight from Mumbai left at 8:08 AM after a delay of seven hours. The Mumbai-Newark flight departed at 04:08 AM instead of 1:30 AM.
Reactions
Passengers express their frustration on Twitter
On Twitter, many fliers expressed their displeasure and blamed Air India for mismanagement.
@_zaid982 wrote: commercial are on flash strikes at cst mumbai airport. Due to this all flights domestic as well international delay. #airindiaworstmanagement (sic)
@Anandloki tweeted: Why did I book this fatichar airline. 676 from Kol to Mum delayed by 3 hrs. No announcement. Just an SMS five-minutes before departure time (sic)
Twitter Post
It's shameful, tweets another
@MoCA_GoI @airindiain @narendramodi it's shameful for the government to run AirIndia anymore. Passengers stranded in Mumbai airport due to strike!!!!! Strike in Airline services...that too sudden! Serious threat!!!
— Sumanto Dey (@dey_sumanto) November 8, 2018