Air strike: Traffic control officers ground flights nationwide

International and domestic air traffic in the country was completely paralysed on Friday, April 11, and airports were unable to cope with the chaos of stranded passengers as air traffic controllers went on a flash strike to protest the suspension of a colleague.

Airports Authority of India Chairman Ranjan Chatterjee said tonight that the suspension of Deputy Director S S Singh had been revoked and this had been conveyed to the Air Traffic Controllers' Guild.

However, the controllers continued their stir.

Air Traffic Controllers' Guild Regional President (Bombay) I J Mukherjee, however, told Rediff On The Net that the ATC officials are not on strike. "We are putting on record our resentment at the AAI's hig-handedness - they suspended our deputy director against all International Civil Aviation Organisation norms. But our officials are on the channels and are providing services to all incoming flights. All flights in air will be brought down safely. So would any in emergencies."

The agitation, he said, will continue till Singh is reinstated.

Singh, he said, was served suspension notice at 9.45 am for "some failure on his part".

"ICAO clearly prescribes that there should be a preliminary inquiry before any action is taken in such cases. But the AAI has gone ahead and suspended him," Mukherjee complained.

All flights within India's Flight Information Region, ATC officials claim, have been ''severely affected".

They said that the agitation is not in anyway linked with their earlier threat of opting out of the AAI which had been resolved in an eleventh-hour meeting on May 31.

Singh had been suspended on April 8 in a preliminary investigation into a near miss between an United Airlines aircraft and an Air-India plane over Delhi airspace. This indicates a serious lapse on the part of the deputy director, AAI stressed in a release.

If the strike is not called off a contingency plan would be put into action on Saturday, using the services of trained air force personnel and others who have served as ATCs before and are now in the executive cadre, the AAI assured.

Confusion prevailed at airports in Delhi, Bombay, Madras and Calcutta after the controllers struck work at 10 am.

Passengers thronged terminals throughout the day in the hope that a solution to the strike would emerge. Many returned home as helpless airline officials told them that flights had been cancelled.

Those waiting to receive people arriving from abroad had an even worse time as nobody had an idea whether the flights which had already left their place of origin would land in India.

Chatterjee said Singh's suspension had been revoked but proceedings against him would continue. He said the action had to be taken in the interest of air safety and due to the fact that there have been too many air misses of the kind recently.

AAI sources felt the controllers are now making unreasonable demands. ''They are now insisting that AAI should make a commitment that in future such action would not be taken against any ATC official.''

They are also demanding that no action should be taken against the strikers.

The Indian Airlines, meanwhile, said they could not operate flights after 9.30 am. Since the disruption might continue on Saturday, passengers booked to travel on Indian Airlines flights have been asked to get in touch with the airline at the metros.

Chatterjee said the controllers had given no written communication that they were striking work and neither had they given any reason for their action.

'The ATCOs, without any discussion with the management of the Airports Authority of India and without any prior notice, proceeded on an illegal strike, which has resulted in massive disruption of air traffic all over the country causing grave inconvenience to the public and an enormous loss to the nation,' an AAI release charged.

The AAI claimed the ATCOs began their agitation by not permitting the aircraft to take off and later prevented planes from landing too.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation, AAI and other authorities held day-long meetings to work out ways to sort out the problem. The AAI chairman and other officials who were to brief the media did not turn up for the scheduled press conference.

Sources said the ATCOs had not responded to the AAI's request for negotiations.

Airport sources in Bombay said international and domestic flight operations came to a grinding halt at noon and chaos prevailed at both Sahar International and Santa Cruz domestic terminals.

All Air-India, Indian Airlines, Alliance Airlines and private and foreign airlines' aircraft were grounded and no flights took off after noon.

The worst affected were about 800 haj pilgrims booked from Bombay on two flights of Air-India which could not be operated due to the strike as their travel documents required them to be at Jeddah this midnight (local time). Unless the government came to their rescue by securing extension of visas for them, they faced the prospects of being deprived of the opportunity till next year, sources said.