The two-day-long strike by cabin crew on Air India Express thankfully ended last night, bringing temporary relief to passengers, but it may take some time for the disrupted services to return to normal. The agreement in the settlement talks held last night under the leadership of the Labor Commissioner was to bring back around 30 senior employees dismissed by the management following the strike. According to this, the unions have said that all the members who went on strike will return to work as soon as possible. Although the curtain has come down on the air strike that disrupted more than 150 services and inconvenienced more than half a million passengers in two days, passengers pray that the dispute between Air India Express employees and Tata Group, the owners of the airline, will not lead to another lightning strike!

The company sacked around 30 senior cabin crew members for the strike that led to the unexpected burden the passengers are made to face. The cabin crew members went on strike without warning on Wednesday to protest against management discrimination against employees citing irregularities in redistribution of job nature and salary structure. In many airports, passengers got information about service cancellations only when they arrived at the airport and were waiting for their boarding passes. Not only did the employees take sick leave en masse, but the rest also switched off their mobile phones and moved out of sight. With that, there was nobody to check with on what the status of Air India Express services was.

Many of those who had returned home for the holidays, who were supposed to travel on flights that operated, including to the Gulf countries, were supposed to return to work the previous day. The strike, which has left those who had booked tickets for other essential journeys in crisis, continues without end. The Tata company bought Air India, a public sector airline that was sinking into heavy losses, and Air India Express, a relatively low-fare category, at the end of 2021. Tata Group, which acquired the company for Rs 18,000 crore, kept the flight crew intact. The workers, who were working as Central Government employees, were not very fond of the nature and rules of a corporate company from the beginning. It was that dislike that finally led to the explosion known as the lightning strike and the presumptuousness that made the passengers suffer.

The unions' position until late yesterday was that there would be no settlement discussions without the withdrawal of the management action that dismissed the strikers. A big crisis was avoided when both parties were ready to compromise. Punctuality and service excellence of flights are the basic factors for the survival of any airline. It can be assumed that the passengers will tolerate the lack of facilities in the case of Air India Express, which has low fares. However, no one can bear to be unsure if the service they have booked is available on that day and if so, if it will depart on time. Even though the cloud of crisis has moved away for the time being, vigilance should come not only from the management side but also from the central government side to find a permanent solution to the employees' objections and not to repeat the lightning strikes that make the air travellers suffer.