Mumbai/New Delhi, Sep 8 - Some 20,000 air passengers in India, including hundreds of foreigners, were severely inconvenienced as nearly 400 pilots of Jet Airways went on 'sick leave' Tuesday, causing cancellation of nearly 200 flights and chaos at airports.

Flights out of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Chennai were in the shambles as a result of pilots' mass 'sick leave'. Jet Airways operates 380 flights to 63 destinations in India and overseas, of which 113 domestic and 16 international flights were cancelled.

'The least the airline people could have done is informed me that my flight was being cancelled,' complained V.S. Sharma who was to fly to Mumbai from Delhi. 'I could have made alternative arrangements. Really, this is very, very bizarre.'

Stranded passengers claimed rival carriers even doubled their fares arbitrarily to cash in on the sudden rush for tickets.

'I had to pay Rs.6,000 extra. This is double the amount I usually pay for my Delhi-Mumbai tickets,' said Annu Kumar, an IT professional who bought a Kingfisher ticket after his Jet Airways flight to Mumbai was cancelled.

'They have clearly taken advantage of this situation,' Kumar told IANS in Delhi.

The passengers were particularly agitated after learning that the cause for the pilots' 'sick leave' was their demand for reinstatement of two pilots sacked by the airline.

The beleaguered carrier later in the day got a reprieve when the Bombay High Court restrained its pilots from resorting to strike.

Jet Airways petitioned the high court Tuesday for an order to restrain the National Aviators' Guild (NAG) - a union of some 400 Jet Airways pilots - from resorting to any form of strike. Jet Airways has 1,080 pilots on its rolls.

Accepting the carrier's contention, the Bombay High Court passed an order barring any form of strike by the pilots.

National carrier Air India offered help, saying it had both aircraft and crew on stand-by for immediate deployment should Jet Airways be forced to cancel more flights in the coming days.

'We are in talks with the government and Jet Airways officials,' Air India spokesperson Jitendra Bhargava said.

'In the event of need to operate special flights to help stranded passengers, we would do so for which we have kept on stand-by aircraft and crew,' Bhargava added.

Home Secretary G.K. Pillai asked all state chief secretaries to review the situation in their States with regard to the 'wildcat strike' and invoke provisions of their respective Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA).