Jet Airways cancels 10 flights from Mumbai, pilot shortage blamed

Mumbai: Hundreds of passengers of Jet Airways were left stranded at the Mumbai Airport after the carrier cancelled 10 domestic flights on Sunday, an airline source said.

Jet Airways said the flights were cancelled from the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) due to "operational issues". However, a Jet Airways source claimed the cancellations were due to pilots' scarcity.

"Jet Airways had to cancel a few domestic flights of date [November 18] due to operational reasons. Guests of the affected flights were duly informed about their flight status via SMS alerts. In accordance with regulatory policy, guests have been re-accommodated and or compensated," Jet Airways said in a statement.

Jet Airways said it regretted the inconvenience caused to its guests. The airline source said the carrier had not been regular in paying salaries to pilots, engineers and senior management for quite some time now.

Facing a cash crunch, Jet Airways, controlled by Naresh Goyal, had lost a significant number of pilots in the recent past and many a time, pilots still with the airline had to work overtime to make up for the shortage, the source said.

"The airline failed to operate as many as domestic 10 flights from Mumbai on Sunday as it did not have required number of pilots. Due to the abrupt cancellations, passengers who had booked their journey on these flights were left stranded," the source said.

He said the shortage of pilots at Jet Airways had been going on for months as it had not hired new ones to replace those who quit the airline in this period due to financial issues.

In September, Jet Airways pilots warned of 'non-cooperation' if salaries continued to get delayed.