Air India Express employees express worry over software malfunction; crew marked sick despite returning to service

All the Air India Express cabin crew members who reported sick have joined their duty by this Saturday.

However, due to a software glitch in the company scheduling software as it was recently introduced, it is still showing that staff are reporting as sick, Air India Express Employees Union said in a release on Sunday.

Further, the flights to take off today were cancelled three days back.

To fly again, the passengers who were booked have to be reconfirmed so that the flight operations resume. "As such, there is no delay on the part of the cabin crew. We also express our sincere apologies to the esteemed guests for the inconvenience caused to them," the release read.

The Air India Express Employees Union recently had a conciliatory meeting with the Chief Labour Commissioner (Central) New Delhi with regard to the prevailing situation in the Air India Express.

"The CLC has conducted marathon proceedings with the representatives of this union and management of the Airlines in a cordial manner and the management agreed to take back the terminated employees forthwith and also resolve all the remaining issues asap. The CLC has adjourned the proceedings to the 28th of May 2024," the employees union added.

On Thursday, in the meeting that continued for about four and a half hours regarding the human resource crisis at Air India Express, an agreement was reached with the crew members addressing all their concerns.

Both the crew and management members have agreed to restore normal airline operations. Consequently, the termination of 25 crew members has been overturned.

All unhappy crew members are ready to join the office with immediate effect and management is ready to revoke all termination letters.

Should the crew members' demands remain unmet, another meeting is scheduled to convene on May 28.

About 85 flights were cancelled due to sudden sick leave calls from crew members.

The sudden shortage of crew members led to flights being grounded, affecting both domestic and international routes. Sources said that some senior crew members switched off their mobile phones just before flight operations, citing health issues.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation had called for a detailed report from Air India Express regarding the matter and had urged the airline to promptly resolve the issues.

This incident at Air India Express comes shortly after Vistara encountered similar issues in April when hundreds of flights were affected due to pilots calling in sick.