Malayalee Association protests against Air India Gulf flight cancellations, fares

Protesting against cancellation of international flights without advance information and exorbitant fares being levied by Air India on the Gulf-Kerala sector, the Capital’s Malayalee Association on Wednesday submitted an appeal to Union Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh asking for his urgent intervention.

Association president V. C. Mathookutty said: “The entire Middle-East Malayalee community has been facing great difficulty in travelling, whether it is the international or the domestic sector, due to frequent flight cancellations and delays by Air India. Poor passengers are treated unfairly because maximum fares are levied on sectors operating to and from Kerala. Considering the heavy passenger movement from Kerala’s airports, Air India introduced special flights under the brand name Air India Express. Instead of solving our problems, this has created more problems than we can think of.”

He added that flights from Kerala sector were being withdrawn under the guise of providing connectivity to the Haj passengers. Demanding that Air India Express operations be resumed to and from Kerala, the Association has asked for use of Boeing 777 aircrafts (which were on offer for wet-lease operations to others and now kept unutilised).

Association general secretary Sibi Sebastian added: “We also have demanded that the department concerned study the fare structures and bring rationality and parity on all flights connecting Kerala.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-newdelhi/malayalee-association-protests-against-air-india-gulf-flight-cancellations-fares/article3940720.eceerala.”