Air India to operate additional flights on Aug 18

National carrier Air India on Sunday said it plans to operate additional flights on August 18 to avoid possible inconvenience to passengers in case private airline operators go ahead with their strike call.

"In addition to normal daily carriage of passengers on our scheduled flights, we will be able to accommodate about 25,000 additional passengers on the scheduled flights and the specially operated flights," an Air India spokesperson said here.

Six major private carriers, under the aegis of the Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA), has announced their decision to not fly on August 18 to protest the rising prices of aviation turbine fuel and taxes on it, besides high airport charges.

They are also demanding an immediate bailout and threatened to suspend their services indefinitely if the government did not intervene urgently. The move to operate additional flights over the scheduled flights is to ensure that the passengers did not face inconvenience in view of the proposed strike, he said.

Air India will also operate special flights with large capacity aircraft like B 747 and Boeing 777 on high density routes "so that the load of small flights can be accommodated on a single flight," he said.

"We are hopeful that with full support of our employees, we will not only be able to make optimal use of the aircraft but also manpower so that maximum number of flights are operated," the spokesperson said.

Air India will monitor the situation to gain a fair idea of load in order to make the number of additional flights commensurate with demand, the spokesperson said.

About one lakh passengers take 1,200 domestic flights operated by all private airlines in a day. White-bodied aircraft such as B-747 has a capacity of 430 seats against the commonly used 120 seater A-320s and B-737s.