India's flagship carrier Air India was forced to cancel most of its domestic flights as hundreds of its pilots continued their strike for the fourth day on Saturday, reported dpa.
The cash-strapped airline that has suffered losses of 6 billion dollars so far due to the strike had grounded 150 flights of its daily 225 domestic flight network, the IANS news agency reported. 35 more flights were rescheduled.
"We will operate just around 40 flights nationally, which includes 13 flights from Delhi, where on an average we have 52 flights," a senior Air India official told the IANS.
The airline was operating only on major routes to main Indian cities and had scaled down international operations.
Over 600 former pilots of Indian Airlines have been striking for the same pay and conditions as their Air India colleagues following a merger between the two debt-ridden state-run carriers.
The pilots continued their industrial action despite the Delhi High Court criticizing the Indian Commercial Pilots Association for not heeding its order to end the strike.
The airline is facing its worst financial crisis with losses mounting to nearly 3 billion dollars since 2007 merger of the state-run carriers.
