The ongoing strike by Air India pilots left passengers in the lurch at Chandigarh airport for the third day on Monday. Around 60 bookings were made for the Air India flight IC 864, scheduled to depart for Delhi from Chandigarh at 3 pm, which did not take off eventually. Of the 40 passengers that arrived, some were accommodated on other flights, while the others accepted a refund and made alternate arrangements.

“The passengers were informed in advance about the cancellation. Ticket booking has been hit by the strike. Today’s booking was almost half the average number of bookings,” said an AI official.

On Monday evening, the airline finally stopped advance booking for flights .

This is the second airline strike in two weeks. Earlier, pilots of Jet Airways had suspended work. A passenger complained: “The disruption of flights due to such protests has become a common phenomenon and leads to sheer harassment of passengers. The government should take pro-active measures to check this practice.”