NEW DELHI: Around three dozen angry passengers illegally seized a Jet Airways flight on the ground at the IGI Airport in Delhi resulting in the flight being delayed by around three hours on Friday night. The passengers were unhappy about missing their connecting flight scheduled for different cities from Delhi airport due to late arrival at IGIA.
Upon landing, the passengers refused to de-board the plane, 9W-334 to Mumbai which had come from Lucknow. Later, the CISF and Delhi police were informed about the incident following which a team of more than a dozen security staff went inside the plane and asked the passengers to deplane.
The fiasco started around 7 pm when flight landed at Delhi. Due to VVIP movement and Air traffic congestion, the Jet Airways flight scheduled for Mumbai at 6:15 pm landed after a delay of almost an hour.
“As the flight landed late and was scheduled for Mumbai, the airline staff asked passengers to clear the aircraft. But, almost 36 passengers refused to come out claiming that they had already missed their connecting flight for various cities due to the delay and they want another flight,” an airport official said.
Later, when the passengers didn’t allow other passengers, who were supposed to travel from Delhi for Mumbai, Jet Airways called CISF and Delhi police to vacate the aircraft.
“9W 334 with 166 guests departed to Mumbai with a delay of close to four hours” said the airlines in an official statement.
“After almost two hours, the police managed to take out angry passengers from the aircraft. The flight which was scheduled to depart at 6:15 pm to Mumbai departed well after 10 pm,” the official said.
According to the police, the passengers were told that they have illegally seized the aircraft and they can be booked for this offence. After that Passengers vacated the aircrafts. According to Civil Aviation Requirements section 8 ‘Acts of unlawful interference’ also involves unlawful seizure of aircraft in flight.
"Jet Airways regrets the delay in the departure of its flight 9W 334 from Delhi to Mumbai of November 03, 2017, due to the late arrival of the aircraft from Lucknow, owing to operational reasons and ATC congestion," Jet Airways said in a statement.