NEW DELHI, May 2: Prime Minister I K Gujral is learnt to have ticked off Union Civil Aviation Minister C M Ibrahim and senior ministry officials, including the then secretary Yogesh Chandra, for mismanagement of international carrier Air India's flight schedule. The airline's inconsistent policy on new destinations and withdrawal of flights has also received criticism from senior United Front ministers.

According to sources, the prime minister was critical of ``frequent cancellations and diversion'' of aircraft by Air-India. He directed the civil aviation minister to take steps to make sure that such operations were planned properly, without disturbing other flights. In all, the international carrier has diverted five aircraft (out of a fleet of 28 aircraft) for 8 weeks for Haj operations, cancelling nearly 10 flights a week on Europe and Canada sectors.

The criticism was voiced when two senior ministers complained to the prime minister about mishandling of flight schedule by Air-India at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Sources said the issue came up when the union cabinet took up the civil aviation ministry's proposal to grant Rs 93 crore as subsidy for Haj operations in 1997-98.

In his budget, Finance Minister P Chidambaram had provided a sum of Rs 42 crore as subsidy as against Rs 41.71 crore in 1996-97. However, the international carrier raised a demand of Rs 93 crore, with a subsidy of nearly Rs 12,000 per pilgrim. The subsidy proposal was cleared by the cabinet.

Now, the civil aviation minister plans to take up the issue with the Air India management at a performance review meeting in New Delhi on May 4. In fact, Ibrahim is learnt to be not too pleased with the performance of the international carrier. Meanwhile, Air India has decided to restore its full schedule of operations from May 23 with the completion of Haj flights.

Accordingly, it plans to re-intorduce its bi-weekly flights on India-UK-Canada route, tri-weekly flights to Europe covering Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam and restore Boeing 747 operations on the India-Hongkong-Osaka sector. It has decided to introduce a new air service to Seoul with A-310 aircraft from July 1997. The carrier has also finalised its schedules for the winter season 1997-98 (from November 1997 to March 1998), which includes bi-weekly air flights to Nepal, Zurich and South Africa.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.