Missing pilots ground Sahara

Thirty-three flights cancelled due to mass leave.

About 30 pilots of private carrier Air Sahara went on leave today, causing cancellation of several flights. The mass leave is being seen as a mark of protest by Air Sahara pilots who have been demanding same pay as Jet Airways pilots.

The Air Sahara management was holding talks with representatives of pilots till late into the night.

According to Air Sahara Vice-President Aloke Sharma, 33 flights had to be cancelled due to the pilots reporting sick. Flight schedules were disrupted due to the mass leave by pilots that comes in the wake of Jet Airways' $500-million takeover of the carrier last month. On an average, Air Sahara has 130 flights a day.

Losses for Air Sahara due to the cancellation and disruption of flights might run into several crores of rupees, airline sources said.

Sharma said measures were being taken to make sure that flights were not disrupted tomorrow. These include combining several flights into one on certain sectors and arrangements with other carriers to accommodate stranded passengers.

More than 10 Air Sahara morning flights out of Delhi were cancelled or delayed while in Mumbai, four were cancelled.

In Kolkata, earlier in the day, Air Sahara executives maintained that technical reasons were behind the grounding of all flights, while in Chennai, it was "lack of flights" that led to the flight to Hyderabad being cancelled.

Passengers were accommodated in Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines flights by the airlines' ground staff.

There have also been fears of retrenchment among Air Sahara employees since the takeover, with some pilots having already put in their papers.

When contacted, Jet executives said Jet Airways was not involved in the running of Air Sahara as it was still awaiting regulatory approvals after the takeover.

Sources close to the development said Jet Airways had given an indirect assurance that, in step with an employee integration plan, it would absorb all Air Sahara pilots.

The mass leave was also sparked by a reported Jet Airways move to conduct another round of interview for Air Sahara pilots before absorbing them. Jet executives refused to comment on the matter.