New Delhi, September 13: Over 150 Jet Airways flights on Sunday remained cancelled even as the airline made all efforts to restore normalcy after its pilots called off their five-day long stir and decided to get back to work following an agreement between them and the airlines’ management.
About 139 domestic and 13 international flights, including 27 from the national capital, were cancelled this morning, as per the list of cancelled flights posted on the airlines’ website.
The airline said that normalcy is likely to return from this afternoon after the pilots resume their duties.
Over 400 pilots, who reported “sick” for the last five days, decided to resume their duties after a nine-hour-long meeting with the airlines’ management in Mumbai last night.
During the marathon meeting, which ended at around 2.30 am, the airline management and the agitators reached a settlement under which the four sacked pilots will be reinstated and a consultative group made up of the two sides formed to resolve all issues. However, the pilot’s association NAG will not work as an union.
The airline has started booking of seats for today’s flights since this morning, as the passengers trickling in following an end to the pilots’ stir.
Jet’s ticketing counter at the IGI airport here, which wore a deserted look in the last five days, saw some anxious passengers enquiring about the status of flights.
The airline also tried to bring in some normalcy by combining Mumbai-Dubai and Dubai-Mumbai flights on international sectors.
It also merged some flights on Mumbai-Delhi, Mumbai-Vadodara-Ahmedabad, Bangalore-Mumbai and Mumbai-Hyderabad sectors. During the agitation period, Jet had made the provision of accommodating its passengers in its low-cost arm JetLite flights on many sectors.
During the five-day impasse, 1,058 flights were cancelled, causing inconvenience to thousands of passengers, especially during the first two days of the agitation — when the pilots started reporting “sick”.
The airline management had also moved the Bombay High Court, which passed an order Wednesday, restraining the pilots from resorting to any form of agitation. Subsequently, the airline also filed a contempt petition, slated to be heard Monday.
The government sought to intervene in a limited manner when Home Secretary GK Pillai asked the states to examine if they can invoke the Essential Services Maintenance Act.
–Agencies