Air-India has decided to terminate the contract of the commander of Frankfurt-Delhi flight, AI-164, of December 23, 2003, which was diverted to Ahmedabad due to poor visibility in New Delhi causing inconvenience to passengers.

The flight was under the command of Captain A Kaushal and co-pilot Captain M Gulabani.

The termination of the contract of the pilot followed his failure to abide by the airline's directions to all operating crew to use Mumbai as an alternate airport for New Delhi, and  for not carrying sufficient additional fuel for holding over New Delhi in the event of poor visibility.

An Air-India media release said that if the above directions had been followed and flight diverted to Mumbai instead of Ahmedabad, relief crew would have been readily made available to take the flight back to New Delhi, thus minimising the hardship caused to passengers.

Referring to reports in the media, a spokesman of Air-India clarified that the termination of contract was due to the above and not on account of the pilot's failure to extend his flight duty time limitation.

The flight, with about 300 passengers, including many foreigners, could not land in New Delhi due to bad weather and was diverted to Ahmedabad.

The aircraft crew, after landing in Delhi, apparently walked out, saying they had crossed duty time by 40 minutes.

Passengers had to wait in the airport lounge for over eight hours before a new crew flew in to take the flight to Mumbai.

The new chairman and managing director, V Thulasidas, had told the unions that passenger inconvenience would not be tolerated, the sources said.

The Air-India management is also streamlining the facilities at the Mumbai airport, particularly in situations when several flights are simultaneously affected due to fog in New Delhi.

These measures, the Air-India release said, would include induction of additional staff on contract to meet the sudden rise in number of passengers required to be handled at the airport when flights are affected due to factors like fog, etc., the spokesman said.