Air India reschedules Mum-SFO flight, many miss connecting flights

An Air India flight from Mumbai to San Francisco was rescheduled to the next day without proper explanation, causing significant inconvenience to passengers

A Monday afternoon Air India flight from Mumbai to San Fransisco was rescheduled to Tuesday without any proper explanation, causing great inconvenience to the passengers. After first giving evasive replies to queries, Air India staff later agreed to give hotel accommodation to the passengers. The 1.25 pm Monday flight is now scheduled to fly at 9 am on Tuesday.

An Air India aircraft at a runway. (Reuters)

An Air India spokesperson cited operational reasons behind the delay in departure. “Air India flight AI179 of 26 August 2024 on the Mumbai-San Francisco sector has been rescheduled and is now expected to depart Mumbai at 9 am of 27 August 2024 due to operational reasons. We regret the inconvenience caused to our passengers due to this unforeseen delay.”

Caught unaware, passengers booked on the flight had a harrowing time at the airport. Jalgaon resident Dr Subhash Wadotkar said, “There was a lot of delay. The ground staff did not have information. Lot of passengers had connecting flights, which they will miss. Our time is wasted.’’ Dr Wadotkar is visiting his family in the US.

A group of MNC employees, headed to San Francisco airport, cancelled their tickets after the delay and booked tickets for a KLM flight at 2 am on Tuesday. “We had to pay a huge difference in fare for booking on the KLM flight. We paid a difference of $400 per ticket. Our company will bear the extra costs,’’ said an employee of the MNC.

Another passenger said, “The flight was to leave at 1.25 pm on Monday and it was rescheduled to 3:45 pm. Later, an announcement was made that the flight would leave at 7 pm. At 5 pm, they announced that the flight was cancelled. The ground staff had no clue about what was going on.”

However, the Air India spokesperson said that their ground colleagues at the Mumbai airport were extending all support to the guests booked on the flight. “Hotel accommodation has been provided to the guests. Options of cancellation with full refund or complimentary rescheduling to another date have also been offered to them. At Air India, safety and well-being of our customers and crew remain our top priority.”

A similar incident involving Air India had happened on May 24 this year, when a Mumbai-San Fransisco flight took off after a delay of 36 hours from the Mumbai airport.