THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As many as 170 passengers who were about to board a New Delhi-Thiruvananthapuram Air India flight were stranded for at least eight hours in New Delhi airport late Saturday as the pilot arrived late. The flight, which was supposed to leave at 9.45 pm on Saturday, took off only at 6 am on Sunday.
The passengers, including Congress leader P C Vishnunath MLA, protested at the airport over the delay due to trivial reasons. As the service was a connection flight, even passengers coming from Western countries were stranded.
“This is gross negligence on the part of Air India. We were first informed that the flight would be one hour late and would take off at 10.30 pm. Later, they told passengers to wait for another hour. After 11.30 pm, they did not give any updates. When we asked the officials about the delay, they gave a strange reply that the pilot was unavailable.
I strongly suspect that they gave this reply to avoid providing residential facilities to passengers. I will write to the Civil Aviation Ministry and Air India authorities asking them not to repeat these kinds of situations. I will also ask our MPs to intervene in the issue,” Vishnunath said.
The MLA also pointed out that the aircraft authorities did not provide sufficient facilities for the stranded passengers.
On Saturday, another Air India flight from Mumbai to Kozhikode took off hours late as the pilot fell asleep. However, aircraft authorities blame technical issues as the reason for the delay.
Precautionary landing
An Air India Express flight from Thiruvananthapuram to Dubai made a precautionary landing at Thiruvananthapuram airport on Sunday due to technical issues. The flight made the landing soon after it took off as the air conditioning was not working properly. The airline promptly arranged for another aircraft accommodating all the passengers, Air India Express stated.