A digital signboard at Patna airport. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, April 29: Around 200 passengers of three Air India (AI) Delhi-Patna-Delhi flights had to postpone their journey or look for other options after the airline cancelled their operation today because of the AI pilots’ strike that started on Wednesday.

AI diverted its Mumbai-Delhi-Ranchi (IC 809) flight to Patna to accommodate some of the stranded passengers. Around 48 passengers, who could not travel to Delhi because of cancellation of the AI morning (IC409/410) and afternoon flights (IC 407/408), opted for it. The plane took off from here around 2.25pm.

“Passengers were informed about this option by our call centre as well as by our local office and 48 of them availed the special service,” said an AI official.

Over 70 passengers booked on the AI evening flight (IC 415/416), however, did not have too many options, as the airlines did not have any other flight operating during the evening hours.

Even the private operators were not of much help, as they had little to offer for accommodating so many passengers.

“While three of our passengers were accommodated in the GoAir evening flight on the Patna-Delhi route, only two could be accommodated in the Kingfisher flight,” said an AI official.

With no solution in sight, AI has stopped taking fresh bookings till May 3. But those who have already booked in advance are in the lurch.

“One of my regular customers has booked a ticket for May 2 but he is unable to decide whether he should cancel it or wait for the day,” said the owner of one of the leading travel agencies in the city.

He said fliers were making frantic queries but were not getting satisfactory answers, as the AI officials were not sure about the future course of the strike.

Around 800 AI pilots with allegiance to the Indian Commercial Pilot’s Association (ICPA) went on strike on Wednesday demanding pay parity with pilots of other national carriers. Around 200 more pilots joined the agitation on Thursday, making things tougher for the airlines. Market sources said the airline had incurred a huge loss because of the cancellation of flights. AI has around 1,200 pilots on the rolls.

Aviation sector sources said private players operating on the Patna-Delhi route were playing it safe and were not resorting to abnormal price hike, as is the case in metro cities, because of thin flow of passengers.

“Kingfisher, however, sold its current ticket on Friday for Rs 13,000, which was a bit higher than the normal rate,” added the source.

A Kingfisher official said: “The last few seats in the economy class are sold at this rate on any other day and as our flight had very few seats to offer, tickets were priced high.”

As far as other operators, like GoAir, Jet and IndiGo, are concerned, the ticket prices varied between Rs 5,000 and Rs 7,000.