The crew shortage hit the national carrier Air India again on Monday with its flight to Ahmedabad from New Delhi failing to depart for its destination even after delay of one-and-half hours and putting over 150 passengers onboard at inconvenience.
"The flight was scheduled to take off at 8 pm but till 7:30 pm there were no signs of boarding. When enquired, we were told the flight would take off around 8:30 pm due to crew shortage. Airline also said they were waiting for the crew of another flight to land so that they could be utilised," an aggrieved passenger said.
When contacted, an Air India spokesperson confirmed that the flight (AI-030 Delhi-Ahmedabad) was delayed due to crew shortage.
Earlier on Monday, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Minister Mahesh Sharma had informed the Lok Sabha that as many as 420 Air India flights were delayed between March 2014 to February 2015 and that regular on-time performance review meeting were being held at the highest level, besides cutting salary of the staff responsible for the delays.
He also said Air India continually monitors the carriage/load factors/financial performance of the services on its network and makes efforts to improve their performance.
Sharma also informed that the national carrier has also reduced the frequency of services on its New Delhi-Moscow-New Delhi route (AI 155/AI-156) to two flights per week from four with effect from February 25 to April 15, 2015.
Air India Offers Full Fare Refunds As Flight Operations Hit Due To Heavy Rain In Mumbai Air India Announces Full Refund, Vouchers To Fliers After 30-Hour Delay Diverted Air India Flight Takes Off For San Francisco At Olympics Opening Ceremony, Drag Parody Of 'The Last Supper' Draws Flak Centre Fact-Checks Mamata Banerjee's Mic-Off Claim, She Hits Back Children Of Indian-Americans Face Deportation As Time Runs Out "Goa Would Have Collapsed Had The Congress Rule Continued": Kiren Rijiju Trump Vows To Hold Rallies With More Security Despite Assassination Attempt Fake Billing Scam Worth Thousands Of Crores Unearthed: Punjab Minister Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.