AI rejects charges of flying 'outdated' aircraft

Asserting that it was not flying 'outdated' aircraft anywhere in the country, India's national carrier Air India said on Thursday it was operating flights strictly adhering to the Director General of Civil Aviation rules.

'While AI Express flights, operating primarily from South to various Gulf destinations, are acquired less than three years back, flights operating from other places are purchased only since 1996,' AI's official spokesman Aby George told PTI.

Rejecting the charges raised by 'Kerala Pravasi Association' that AI was operating 'outdated flights' from the Karipur international airport here, he said the 43 Express planes operated from the terminal every week were less than three years old with some of them acquired as recently as eight months back.

Air India accused of flying 'outdated' aircraft

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Association has recently charged AI with providing 'extremely poor' services by running outdated aircraft, posing severe danger to the lives of passengers and also cancelling or postponing its flights quite frequently.

'There could be some error as regards the flight schedules. But we have call centres to inform the traveller about the change well in advance. Those who do not enroll their personal telephone numbers can face trouble as they depend on agents in such occasions,' he said.

'To address the issue more effectively,we have now started the practice of sending SMS to communicate flight delays immediately. Also, we are maintaining standby aircraft to be put on operation whenever the delay is extraordinary,' he added.