12,000 stranded, fares increase 5-fold

With neither the Air India management nor its pilots ready to blink, passengers continued to suffer as the strike entered its third day on Friday. With 126 of the 200 domestic flights cancelled, they were either left stranded at airports or had to shell out hefty airfare to book tickets on other airlines.

Mohammed Giyasuddin Shaikh, 59, stood hassled outside terminal 1A of the domestic airport at Santa Cruz. He and 26 others had arrived from Jeddah on Friday morning and were to take an AI flight to Ahmedabad at 6.30pm. “In the morning, the airline told us that the flight is delayed to 7.15pm and now they have said it has been cancelled. They are asking us to take the refund,” said Shaikh. “We tried getting train tickets but due to the vacation rush it is impossible to get reservation. I guess we will now have to hire a cab to Ahmedabad,” he rued.

Even Kinjal Pratiksha, 35, a resident of Surat and a non-resident Indian (NRI) based in Tokyo, was running helter-skelter to get a ticket to Delhi. “I was booked on a Mumbai-Tokyo flight which is via Delhi. But the airline said it is not flying to Delhi and my connecting flight to Tokyo will leave at 9.10pm,” she said. Pratiksha stays with her husband in Tokyo and had come to Mumbai along with her two daughters in March after the earthquake there. “Now, AI is trying to get me a seat on other airlines but I will have to shell out Rs6,000 extra per ticket, and I do not have that much cash with me,” she said.

Meanwhile, other airlines continued to mint money from AI passengers left in the lurch as airfares rose five-fold. A Mumbai-Bangalore ticket for April 30 was available in the range of Rs39,3977 to Rs43,823, while the normal fare is Rs7,000 upwards. “With passenger rush due to the summer vacations, the weekend, and the pilot strike, the airfares have really gone up,” said a Fort-based agent.