Hundreds of retired, resigned, dead AI employees called for duty!
Earlier this week, hundreds of former Air India employees woke up to some unexpected mails in their inboxes - they had been assigned duty rosters. Some now-deceased crew members, whose family members are using their accounts, were also among the recipients, TOI reports. The airline's employee helpline system was flooded with confused calls, till they figured out the problem.
They replaced faulty CMS with old version, and chaos happened
According to a spokesperson, rostering at Air India is an automated process, undertaken completely by a crew management system (CMS). This week, "an old version of the CMS which is no longer in use was wrongly used due to a problem in the (current) system." The old version had the numbers and mail IDs of previous employees stored. When it took over, it contacted everybody.
Even current employees received flight schedule changes by error!
At least one former employee received 40 mails within 48 hours, she told TOI. Another posted on Facebook: "It has been five years since I quit my job at AI....I still miss my crew life...Shall I borrow a uniform and report to work." But it wasn't only former employees who were affected. Some current ones also got mails informing them of changes in their flight schedule.
Despite mass confusion, flights remained unaffected
The error came to light only when stupefied employees called up the CMS handling unit and inquired. They then received a mail: "Dear crew, due to system updation, automatic email/notification has been generated. You are requested to ignore the same and follow the flight assignment as per schedule." Thankfully, only a few current employees received these mails. Since most were correctly informed, flights remained unaffected.
Snag resolved by Friday morning
The snag was completely resolved by Friday morning, the spokesperson confirmed. Incidentally, this comes amid allegations that pilots are interfering with the roster system to pocket extra allowances. They were flying for 40 hours and taking allowances for 70, TOI reports. A probe is on.
