Strike over but not flyers\' woes: 19 flights cancelled

NEW DELHI: The suspension of the two day-long Air India (IA) strike on Wednesday evening only spelt more trouble for passengers in Delhi . On hearing the news, most presumed that flights would operate normally and reached the airport. Delhi, however, continued to work on a curtailed schedule and cancelled 19 flights on Thursday as well.



Officials said that flight operations would commence as per the normal schedule by Friday, though it would take a short while for the situation to normalise. Most flights to metro cities operated on Thursday . Initially, 24 flights were to be cancelled but by evening, five had been restored. Ajay Mathur, a resident of Patna, was in Delhi for some work and was hoping that his flight would have also resumed. He was in for a surprise when he came to know that he would only be able to travel back on Friday.



'' I was told by the airline earlier that the flight was cancelled but when I heard of the strike being called off, I was hoping that they would operate the flight. I had not even purchased another ticket on a different airline and now I am stuck in Delhi for another day,'' he said.



More such passengers visited the airline counter at the airport in the morning but when no help was forthcoming, they refused to budge from their places till their grievances were addressed. Many of them were adjusted on other flights and sent by the afternoon.



However, the airline did manage to clear off a large part of its backlog, including about 50 passengers who were stuck in Delhi and had to catch flights to international destinations. Many of them had been nervous as their visas were to expire and they had not been getting any help from the government agency to extend them. '' We put in an application on Wednesday night asking the authorities to extend their visas by three days but we managed to operate their flights this morning. The Jeddah flight, in which this problem had been most apparent, left at 11.30 am,'' said an official.
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