Action against Air India crew for delay in Mumbai-Toronto flight

National carrier Air India today said it has initiated action against some crew members of its Mumbai-Toronto flight, which was operated via Cairo on April 15, for reporting late on duty.
    
The airline, however, said the 16-hour delay in the flight was mainly due to certain immigration and lodging issues at the Cairo airport.

The Mumbai-Toronto flight with around 150 passengers on-board, was operated via Cairo on April 15 in view of the closure of European airspace due to volcanic eruption in Iceland.
    
A section of media had reported that the inordinate delay was due to its seven-member crew going out for sight-seeing in Cairo instead of reporting for duty on-time.

"Some inordinate flight delays did occur due to crew not being available at the right time to operate the flights. In view of the above, Air India has already initiated action and seeking explanation of some crew-members in this regard," an Air India statement said here.

Cairo is an off-line station so the operating crew had to spend more time at the immigration counter as they were travelling on General Declaration, the statement said, adding this resulted in their reporting late to operate transit flights.

Air India said that seven sets of crew were shifted from Frankfurt to Cairo to facilitate operations via Cairo.
    
"As the crew checked in groups, there were some issues to identify the crew rooms at the hotel as the room list given by the hotel had a generic 'Air India Crew' and did not have individual names of the crew," the statement said.

There was also some delay in the crew reaching the correct terminal at the airport, as they were dropped at different terminals due to language barrier, it said.