Air strike called off but chaos at airports continues

Photos: Jewella C Miranda

Airport agony in Bombay

But airport officials and airlines' employees had a harrowing time coping with passengers' rush in the major metros as news filtered out that the strike by the ATC officers, over the suspension of a colleague, has ended and that flights would now take off and land.

Official sources said the agitation was called off after talks between the ATC Guild representatives and the chairman of the Airports Authority of India.

''No assurances, as demanded by the ATC officers, was given except that the suspension of Mr S S Singh, a deputy director, was revoked,'' official sources said adding that the government was all set to take the firmest steps to deal with the situation.

Services on a leg

The ATC officers had begun their agitation at Delhi, Bombay, Madras and Calcutta at 9.30 am on Friday without giving any intimation.

And the strike had continued even after AAI Chairman Ranjan Chatterjee had communicated to them that the suspension of Singh had been revoked. The strikers had then put up demands such as an assurance that in future such action would not be taken against any officer.

Singh had been suspended on April 8 after initial investigations into a near miss between a United Airlines aircraft and Air-India plane on April 2 in Delhi airspace.

The deputy director was responsible for a lapse which would have resulted in the loss of 400 lives, charged an AAI source.

Taking into view the seriousness of the situation and the adamant stand of the ATC officers, Cabinet Secretary T S R Subramanian held a meeting on Saturday morning to review the situation and it was decided to activate contingency plans to run a minimum air service.

The cabinet secretary's meeting was attended by the secretary, civil aviation, the foreign secretary and senior officials of the AAI, Directorate-General of Civil Aviation, defence services and other ministries.

It was felt that while the government was responsive to redress the genuine grievances of the ATCs, their unilateral action and intransigence would be dealt with firmly.

While you were weeping

Sources said the ATC Guild had also put forward other demands but the government was firm in their negotiations that they could not give assurances except that the suspension of the officer would be revoked.

AAI Chairman Ranjan Chatterjee had said on Friday that proceedings against Singh would continue.

Chatterjee said the action against Singh had been taken as there had been too many near air misses in recently and air safety could not be compromised.

Following the strike, the passengers had been asked to undertake essential travel only. On Friday, some 250 international and domestic flights were affected because of the agitation.

International travellers were the worst hit, it being the rush season. The foreign airlines said they had no idea how they would cope with the backlog of passengers.

Due to the non-availability of domestic flights, the railway reservation centres were packed with people wanting to take trains to reach their destinations.

Passengers, who had returned from airports in the morning, rushed back in the afternoon after they learnt the ATC stir was called off. Total chaos prevailed.

Sources said operation of domestic and international flights would resume shortly, though it would take five to six hours to return to normal schedules.

An Air-India spokesperson said they would operate all scheduled flights, including the two haj flights stranded since Friday due to the ATC strike. Similarly, the Indian Airlines and its subsidiary, Alliance Airlines, would fly their flights on normal schedule except those services which had been cancelled in the morning.

Both domestic and international arrivals are likely to be delayed by several hours on account of the pre-flight preparations by airlines, necessary for resumption of flights, airport sources said.

Reports from Hyderabad said the evening flights from there would be operated on Saturday.

Indian Airlines sources said flights which would take off from Hyderabad are: Bombay (1730 hours), Bhubaneswar (1750 hours), Bangalore (2015 hours) and Madras (2020 hours).

UNI