Air India Express flight services hit for second day

KOZHIKODE: Travel chaos continued at the Calicut International Airport and Kannur International Airport for the second consecutive day on Thursday following the strike by Air India Express cabin crew, which resulted in mass cancellation of flights.
Irate passengers, who had their travel to the Middle East countries disrupted, staged protests and entered into altercation with the airline staff at the two airports.
Many passengers who were originally scheduled to travel on Wednesday but were issued fresh tickets for Thursday were in for another round of disappointment.
According to sources, six flight services to the Gulf were cancelled from Kannur airport while five onward flights from Calicut airport, including services to Al Ain, Jeddah, Salalah, Riyadh and Doha, got cancelled on Thursday.
Kanhirode native Sunesh P K, who was scheduled to fly to Bahrain from Kannur, came to know about the flight cancellation only after reaching the airport at 2pm.
"I am running an automobile business at Bahrain and had come home for 10 days. Now, with the flight cancellation, I have been given a new ticket for May 14. What is most unfortunate is that the airline staff are not responding to the passengers, who are deeply concerned over their flight disruptions, in a considerate manner," Sunesh said.
Meanwhile, three domestic Air India Express flights and an international flight to Cochin International Airport Ltd (Cial) were cancelled on Thursday. Two Air India Express flights to Doha and Muscat and three Air India Express domestic flights to Hyderabad, Kolkata and Bengaluru from Kochi also got cancelled. Though there were protests on Wednesday, there weren't much protests from passengers on Thursday as most of them were aware of the problems beforehand.
In Thiruvananthapuram International Airport, seven international and two domestic flights were cancelled on Thursday due to the strike. Despite the disruption, the airline managed to operate three international flights Thiruvananthapuram to Doha, Sharjah to Thiruvananthapuram, and Thiruvananthapuram to Dammam.
The cancelled domestic flights were those connecting Thiruvananthapuram with Bengaluru and Hyderabad. The affected international routes included flights to Abu Dhabi, Muscat, Dubai and Sharjah and from Dammam, Abu Dhabi and Muscat.
(With inputs from Kochi & T'puram)