BENGALURU: An Air India Express flight from Bengaluru to Mangaluru on Saturday evening suffered a delay of 4 hours and 32 minutes, inconveniencing passengers. The travel time between the two cities is only 90 minutes. Flyers were made to board their flight, sit inside for two hours and then made to alight, said a passenger. Operational reasons have been cited as the issue by the airline.
The flight was supposed to take off from Terminal 2 of Kempegowda International Aiport and reach Mangaluru at 8 pm. Instead, it took off around 11.02 pm. The 737 Max8 aircraft is expected to reach Mangaluru airport at 12.04 am on Sunday (March 10) now.
Flyer Rumaan posted on X, “Worst experience with @AirIndiaX IX-1795 at the Blr airport today. First they made us wait near the gate for 40 min. Then boarded us into the flight and now they say there’s a technical issue with the flight while we are still inside the flight.”
In another tweet, he added, “After making us wait for 2 hours inside the flight, now they de-boarded us out from the same airport and made us go through the whole security again and told us to come back to the same gate as before….”
According to the flightststs.com website, the departure gate of the flight was changed from D11 to D25 before it left Bengaluru.
The airline responded, “Operational issues necessitated the delay, ensuring your safety remains our priority. Rest assured, we are ready for take-off in a while.”