PUNE: Around 200 flyers of a Delhi-Pune Air India Express flight were made to sit in the aircraft for seven-and-a-half hours before being deboarded and told to go through the security check process yet again in the national capital.
The flight (IX-1176) was scheduled to take off from Delhi at 9.40pm on Friday and land in Pune at 11.50pm. The plane finally departed from Delhi at 7.30am on Saturday.
Pune resident Ambadas Gawande, booked in the flight with his family, said the plane landed in Pune around 10am on Saturday, more than 10 hours after its scheduled arrival time.
TOI sent a detailed WhatsApp message to the airline’s spokesperson seeking reasons behind the flyers’ ordeal. A reply from the airline was awaited till going to press.
Gawande said, “First, there was a delay of half-an-hour. All passengers boarded the aircraft by 10pm on Friday. When the aircraft didn’t fly even after an hour, flyers asked the crew members what was the problem. One of them said visibility was a major problem because of fog. Some flyers lost their cool after patiently sitting in the aircraft for more than two hours.”
The cabin crew told the passengers to be seated, assuring them that the plane would be in the air soon. “But it never happened. Many passengers, mostly senior citizens, wanted to go back to the terminal building to sit and rest comfortably. But that was not to be. There were frequent arguments between flyers and the crew members. We all understood that the aircraft wouldn’t take-off because of the fog. But there was no logic behind keeping us seated in the plane for more than seven hours,” he said.
“The cabin crew members suddenly told us to deboard the plane at 5.30am on Saturday, stating that there was a technical problem in the aircraft. After coming out of the plane, we were huddled into buses. The vehicles moved around the area for a while and dropped us at the terminal building. Then we were told to go through the security check again. The whole thing took around two hours. Surprisingly, we boarded the same aircraft again,” Gawande said.
Flight operations were adversely affected in Pune also because of fog and low visibility at different airports, including Delhi. Over 32 flights from and to the city were delayed between 12midnight and 12noon on Saturday. Almost all flights to and from Delhi were delayed between three hours and five hours.
A passenger flying from Pune to Delhi said, “With almost all flights delayed, it was total chaos in the security check area. The new terminal building isn’t equipped to handle so much crowd. People had to stand for hours for their flights. There was no proper communication from the airlines, which worsened the situation.”
Hashim Ansari, who was at the Pune airport at 6am, wrote on X with a video, “No proper facilities to sit and rest. People are seated on carpets.”
