Chartered flight: AI denies Poorna Patel's involvement

Air India on Friday said it had operated a charter flight to carry IPL players from Chandigarh to Chennai as per rules and procedures and maintained that Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel's daughter, Poorna, was not involved in this operation.

Maintaining that the April 20 charter flight was organised "on a request from M/s India Cements Limited, the owners of Chennai Super King franchise", the airline said "Poorna Patel was not involved in this charter operation, nor did she travel on this flight."

The airline was reacting to reports in the media that Poorna had got an aircraft pulled out from scheduled operations for the charter flight.

In a statement, the national carrier said, "It is rather unfortunate that such malicious reports are being published tarnishing the image of the national carrier for carrying out a normal business operation".

Asserting that it had violated no rules in mounting the flight, Air India said, "Normal charter rates as applicable were charged for the whole operation including ferry flight from Delhi to Chandigarh and from Chennai to Delhi - apart from the charter flight from Chandigarh to Chennai."

Observing that it had been operating charter flights for defence and private parties "taking into account operational and commercial considerations", it said the charter flights were mounted "only on receipt of full money, the charges are on the basis of block hours including the ferry legs of the flight".

AI CMD Arvind Jadhav was quoted as saying that the operation was "a commercial decision taken by the competent authority at the regional level, in the best interest of the airline. Air India has not violated any of the rules governing the flight operations by this service".

Describing the charter as a "planned operation", the airline said it was undertaken after taking into account all factors and standard operating procedures including clearance from defence authorities, regarding the operational viability, without inconvenience to the passengers.

The passengers were informed in advance of the revised operation, it added. Air India said its regional offices were expected to generate additional revenue by full utilization of the resources and they were operationally and commercially empowered to do so, keeping the network considerations.