Thiruvananthapuram:
A woman whose husband was in intensive care in an Omani hospital was unable to see him one last time before he died in Oman because his Air India Express flight to the country was canceled last week, a heartbreaking story says. The family claimed that there had been.
The woman, Amrita, had booked a flight for May 8 to meet her husband in Muscat, but when she arrived at the Thiruvananthapuram airport, she was told that her flight had been cancelled.
Due to the protests at the airport, she got a ticket for another Air India Express flight the next day, but unfortunately that too was canceled and she was forced to abandon her travel plans completely.
On Monday, news of her husband's death reached her from Oman.
“It was so unfair not to be able to see Amrita one last time. We begged the airline to put us on another flight so we could see her one last time. But the airline… They didn't do anything,” Amrita's mother said. TV channel.
She also said that Amrita's husband wanted to meet his wife and children, which is why he booked a ticket to meet her.
Amrita later told reporters that the airline told her there was nothing they could do after the second flight was also cancelled.
“They say the planes for the next four days are full and they can't do anything,” she said.
Her husband was hospitalized with a severe heart attack. “I spoke to him on the phone. I told him I would try to get there as best I could,” she said.
There was no immediate comment from the airline.
Air India Express canceled “a number of flights” last week citing a shortage of cabin crew, with some flight attendants reporting feeling unwell, raising suspicions of mismanagement at the Tata Group-owned airline. held a protest against.
Dissatisfaction has been running high among some of the low-cost airline's cabin crew, especially since the company's merger process with AIX Connect, the erstwhile AirAsia India, began.
Subsequently, on May 10, the strike by some flight attendants was called off, and the airline also withdrew the termination notices issued to the 25 flight attendants who went on strike.
Air India Express had to cancel more than 260 flights from May 8 to May 10 due to a shortage of cabin crew, according to airline officials.
The airline announced on May 12 that it is gradually resuming operations and stabilizing its network, and expects full normalization by Tuesday. On the same day, the cabin crew union announced that all members who reported feeling unwell had returned to work by May 11.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)