Air India's alternate flight to LA tonight

Passengers of Los Angeles-bound flight AI-137 have been stranded in Delhi since Sept 2 after the aircraft developed a snag.

Air India is making efforts to procure a relief aircraft by Monday evening to ferry passengers of Los Angeles (LA)-bound flight AI-137 of September 2, from Delhi via Frankfurt, which had developed a technical snag prior take-off.

HT Image

Efforts are on to dispatch an aircraft from Mumbai so that it would be available for operation to Los Angeles. However, due to curfew time at European points, the aircraft would leave for LA only after midnight with all 290 passengers on board, AI said in a release here on Monday.

Due to peak season, all the aircraft in Air India's fleet were fully deployed and no alternate aircraft could be made available till now, the release said.

Efforts being made to transfer passengers to other airlines was proving to be difficult since it was peak season for westbound travelers and no airline had excess capacity to accommodate additional passengers, it said.

The technical problem arose due to a malfunction in the weather radar. Air India tried to locate this part locally and with other manufacturers but could not obtain one which satisfied the requirements, it said.