Air India Express flights disrupted by crew taking sudden sick leave

Air India Express has mobilised all resources and revised its flight schedule, a spokesperson for the budget carrier said in a statement to Reuters, without providing details about the sick leaves. The disruptions are the latest setback to India's aviation market after Tata Group-owned Vistara Airlines was forced to scale back 25-30 flights per day because of a pilot shortage in April.

More than 90 flights at Tata Group budget carrier Air India Express have been disrupted since Tuesday night by cabin crew taking sudden sick leave, the airline said on Wednesday. "The disruptions have cascaded across the network, forcing us to curtail the schedules over the next few days," Air India Express Chief Executive Aloke Singh said in a statement, without giving details of the schedule changes.

More than 100 cabin crew had reported sick prior to their rostered flight duty at the last minute, "severely disrupting our operations", Singh said. Air India Express has mobilised all resources and revised its flight schedule, a spokesperson for the budget carrier said in a statement to Reuters, without providing details about the sick leaves.

The disruptions are the latest setback to India's aviation market after Tata Group-owned Vistara Airlines was forced to scale back 25-30 flights per day because of a pilot shortage in April. Salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group announced in 2022 the merger of Air India with Vistara, while Air India Express merges with Air Asia. (Additional reporting by Maria Ponnezhath; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

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