Air India starte new flights

National carrier Air India today said it plans to operate additional flights on August 18 to avoid possible inconvenience to passengers in case private airline operators go ahead with their strike call.

In addition to normal daily carriage of passengers on our scheduled flights, we will be able to accomodate about 25,000 additional passengers on the scheduled flights and the specially operated flights, an Air India spokesperson told PTI here.

Six major private carriers, under the aegis of the Federation of Indian Airlines FIA, has announced their decision to not fly on August 18 to protest the rising prices of aviation turbine fuel and taxes on it, besides high airport charges.They are also demanding an immediate bailout and threatened to suspend their services indefinitely if the government did not intervene urgently.