Covid test of pilots delayed, 135 fliers from London stuck at IGI airport for 10 hours

As many as 135 passengers who had landed at the Delhi international airport from Heathrow airport, London, in an Air India’s Vande Bharat flight on Monday, had to

As many as 135 passengers who had landed at the Delhi international airport from Heathrow airport, London, in an Air India’s Vande Bharat flight on Monday, had to wait for more than 10 hours inside the airport terminal as their connecting Air India flight to Chennai was inordinately delayed.

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While passengers said they were told the flight was delayed because results of the pre-flight Covid-19 tests of the pilots weren’t received on time, Air India maintained that “the delay was because of operational reasons”, without explaining the details.

One of the passengers that HT spoke to, Uma Natrajan from Chennai, who had gone to meet her daughter in London and was stuck there because of the lockdown, said she boarded the Air India’s flight from the Heathrow airport around 7.30pm Sunday and arrived at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport at 8am Monday.

“It was a Vande Bharat flight and from Delhi, we had a connecting AI flight to Chennai. Our departure was scheduled at 10.30am. Soon as we landed, we were asked to sit in the waiting lounge and were told that the flight will depart at 12.10pm. After an hour, the time was changed to 2.30pm, then to 4.30 and finally, our flight to Chennai departed Delhi airport around 6.30pm, after a delay of over 10 hours,” Natrajan, a manager at a private firm in Chennai, said.

Another passenger who was travelling on the same flight, but did not wish to be named, said because there was no clarity on the departure time and all 135 passengers were getting restless, around 4pm they demanded that the airline manager be called to address them. “The manager came around 4.30pm and told us that the flight has been delayed because the pre-flight Covid-19 tests of the pilots have not yet come in,” the passenger said.

Another passenger, 22-year-old student Madhumithaa Sharmila Ramesh Kumar, who studies at a university in the UK, said this was her worst experience with Air India so far. “There were pregnant women and children among the passengers. One of the women had to attend her father’s funeral and she was pleading with airline staff to send her on any available flight, but they didn’t. If the airline officials had told us initially itself that the Covid-19 results of the pilots are awaited, we would have waited patiently. But they gave us no clear answers or explanations, which is unprofessional, “ Kumar said.

An airport official, who didn’t wish to be named, also confirmed that the reason behind the delay was that the test results of the pilots had not come in.

Air India later said the flight departed the IGI airport at 6.30pm and arrived in Chennai at 8.30pm. An airline spokesperson said due to “last-minute operational reasons, the flight had was delayed”. The airline, however, did not comment on the delay over the test reports.

“There were 135 passengers in transit. All efforts were made to minimise the inconvenience to the transit passengers and they were provided refreshments,” the spokesperson said.