Air India Express (AIE) will reinstate 12 flights a week from Kerala to the Gulf starting next month and another 14 from January 2011, as they had been cancelled due to staff shortage. This information was given by Captain Pawan Arora, Chief Operating Officer, Air India Express.

Flights from Kozhikode, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram airports had been cancelled in September 2010 causing widespread uproar from passengers. Later, the same month, some of the flights were reinstated. A recruitment exercise for cabin crew was done and they are being trained in a phased manner starting every Monday effective from this month. This will help overcome the crew shortage and hence flight operations from Kerala will not be disturbed in the future, AIE said in a press release.

The reinstated flights are: Kozhikode-Dubai-Kozhikode on Wednesdays and Saturdays; Thiruvananthapuram-Abu Dhabi-Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesdays and Sundays; Thiruvananthapuram-Sharjah-Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday and Thiruvananthapuram-Dubai-Thiruvananthapuram on Saturdays. From January 2011, AIE plans to introduce few more flights from Kerala.