AI crew’s airport passes expire,operations hit

Air India’s regional subsidiary,Alliance Air,has a fleet of 11 small aircraft with a capacity to seat not more than 70 passengers. On Monday,a flight each to Dubai,Bhubaneswar Kolkata,Bangalore and Patna and two flights to Mumbai had to be combined with other flights operating on wide-bodied aircraft.

An Air India spokesperson said the renewal of the AEPs was delayed “because of Diwali holidays”. Airline sources said the issuance of the BCAS passes was delayed because the contracts of these employees had expired.

“The employees are on a three-year contract. Their contracts had expired,and needed to be renewed before the AEPs could be renewed. The passes were renewed today after the senior management intervened. Several flights have been delayed since Saturday. The flight operations should normalise by Tuesday,” a senior Air India official said.

The airline is already suffering from acute staff crunch.

“In fact,it is a security concern as well,since the airline only has about 20 security officials for screening of passengers at Terminal 3,whereas the requirement is of at least 1,000 officials. The number of domestic flights has also increased from 50 till a week ago to 65 now,and with no supplementary increase in manpower,” the official said.

The Air India spokesperson said: “The situation has normalised today as the AEPs,which had not been renewed,were issued after intervention by the senior management. We had put in the request for renewal of passes in advance with the BCAS. Perhaps it got delayed because of Diwali holidays; there were only two working days last week.”