Air India on Friday said a Delhi-Coimbatore flight was chartered to ferry Indian Premier League (IPL) players and Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel's daughter Poorna for commercial reasons.

"It was absolutely a commercial decision. Chartered flights make a lot of money for the airline. We keep combining flights according to our operational demand. The IPL anyway has been our customer ever since it began," Arvind Jadhav, chairman and managing director of the airline, said in a statement.