File photo: Reuters

NEW DELHI: Almost five years after quitting as an Air India airhostess, Meera Bhatia* earlier this week received a message from the airline’s crew rostering system informing her that she had to operate a certain flight. Then Bhatia (name changed on request) received almost 40 mails in a duration of 48 hours informing her of several changes of flights that she had to operate.

Bhatia was not alone. Hundreds of crew members who had retired or had quit AI have been receiving such messages and mails this week from the airline’s automated crew management system (CMS). Thanks to an error which took it back to an old software that had the inactive members' numbers. Quite naturally, some of these communications landed in inboxes of now-deceased crew members and were read by their family members who still use those email accounts, say sources.

“It has been nearly five years since I quit my job at AI … I still miss my crew life and whenever I am travelling I feel like I could get out of my seat and still seamlessly launch into conducting the service if I had to… shall I borrow a uniform and report to (work),” said a Facebook post of an ex crew member.

An AI spokesman said mails for reporting to duty went to retired crew members and those who had quit due to an error in the system. “The snag was resolved on Friday morning,” said the spokesman. “Rostering is done entirely by CMS. An old version of CMS which was no longer in use was wrongly used due to a problem in the system. This led to ex crew members wrongly getting these messages,” said the spokesman.

Some retired employees called up the CMS and informed them of the error. Even some serving crew members were sent mails, wrongly informing of change in flights assigned. When such people got in touch with crew management, they were sent messages saying: “Dear crew, due to system updation, automatic email/notification has been generated. You are requested to ignore the same and follow the flight assignment as per (schedule).” Luckily the number of in-service crew members who got these mails was small and did not lead affect flights.

The snag in cabin crew rostering system comes even as the rostering of pilots is under the scanner following complaints of malpractices. Senior staffers responsible for preparing pilots' roster are being probed after allegations that rosters are being changed at the insistence of some pilots. Pilots were allegedly using flexibility in flying hours to pocket extra allowances. Sources said some pilots mutually decide among themselves on flight duties. One pilot would fly 40 hours and take the allowances for 70 hours by playing with the system.

