New Delhi:
Air India has planned several additional flights between India, UK and USA with a view to clearing the backlog of passengers stranded at various airports, as a consequence of closure of European Air Space for nearly a week from 15th April 2010.
On Sunday, 25th April 2010, the airline will operate a Mumbai-London-Delhi with a 342 seater Boeing 777-300 ER aircraft. On Monday, 26th April, there will be an additional flight on Delhi-London-Mumbai sector, again with a Boeing 777-300 ER aircraft.
On Wednesday, 27th April, an additional flight with a Boeing 777-300 ER aircraft has been planned on the Mumbai-Hyderabad-Frankfurt-Chicago and return sectors.
Soon after the European Air Space was declared open for flights on 21st April, the airline mustered all available resources to lay down additional flights.
The operation commenced on 23rd April with flights being operated between Mumbai and London, including one flight with a Boeing 747-400 aircraft.
Focus on recovery of aircraft and relief to stranded passengersThe closure of European Air Space on 15th April 2010, and suspension of flights to and from USA, Canada and Europe, resulted in seven Air India aircraft being stranded at airports around the world - two in London, one in Frankfurt, two in New York, one in Newark and one in Chicago.
Apart from the aircraft, the operating crew for the flights were also stranded at these airports. In the first phase, non-stop flights between India and US resumed on Sunday, 18th April using an alternative route over the Southern Europe.
The aircraft and the passengers stranded at Chicago were brought back to India with the flights routed via Cairo, which was a technical halt for re-fuelling purposes. Later on, even the non-stop India to US flights were operated via Cairo, to avoid the payload penalty caused by the need to uplift extra fuel of nearly 19 tonnes on the non-stop flights.
The technical halt at Cairo lasted for four days from 19th to 22nd April.
In mounting the additional flights, Air India was living up to its role of the National Carrier. The fact that the passenger loads on the return sectors, especially between Europe and India were low, did not prevent the airline from discharging its commitment to the air travellers.
New facility for re-booking of stranded passengersThe facilities at the airline's call centre have been augmented and new lines have been commissioned to help the passengers of disrupted flights to re-book their seats.
Passengers holding confirmed bookings on disrupted flights may contact following numbers:
Mumbai 022-39240601 / 022-2759 3001
Delhi/NCR 0124-4587543, 0124-4587010, 0124-4587028, 0124-2861696, 0124-2861698