Air-India on Tuesday announced cancellation of all its flights out of Chennai till May 4, due to the problems with striking pilots.

A-I sources said the flights cancelled included Chennai-Singapore-Chennai and Chennai-Mumbai.

Meanwhile, due to the cancellation of A-I flights, an Indian Airlines flight operating on the Singapore-Chennai sector was pressed into service. The flight arrived in Chennai carrying 311 passengers, airport sources said.

Earlier, state-run Air-India has cut nearly 50 per cent of its flights to Southeast Asia and the Middle East after 27 pilots were suspended at the weekend for refusing to fly to SARS-affected countries.

The international carrier has also discontinued flights to Hong Kong, Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam from Monday. Passengers flying to these countries were being transferred to other carriers.

"We have discontinued flights due to the non-availability of adequate numbers of executive pilots and poor loads," Jitendra Bhargava, spokesman for Air-India told reporters.

The reduction of services will affect destinations such as Bangkok, Tokyo, Singapore, Kuwait, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Muscat, Bahrain, Doha, Riyadh and Jeddah.

The Indian Pilots Guild has asked its 200-member pilots not to fly to Hong Kong and Singapore to reduce their chances of exposure to the deadly flu-like virus.

Nine cases of SARS, that has killed more than 300 people worldwide and infected over 5,000, have been reported in India.

Bhargava said the carrier had decided to recall five retired pilots, who have completed their service with the airline in the last 45-50 days, to operate some flights.

Additional inputs: Reuters