Air India flight cancelled, fliers ‘abandoned in bus’

MUMBAI: Around 50 passengers of an Air India Mumbai-Gwalior flight were stuck in an allegedly “abandoned bus” at the Mumbai airport on Sunday morning after the national

MUMBAI: Around 50 passengers of an Air India Mumbai-Gwalior flight were stuck in an allegedly “abandoned bus” at the Mumbai airport on Sunday morning after the national carrier cancelled the service citing aircraft snag.

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The passengers were already upset as the aircraft assigned to operate the 10:30am flight arrived in the city only at 11:15 am. Though late, but when the check-in process got over and the crew had just begun sending passengers to the plane through airfield buses, it was reported that an irreparable snag in the plane had grounded it.

By this time passengers had lost their cool. A batch of 50-odd passengers, out of others waiting for a response from the airline crew at different places of the airport, said the crew left them in a discarded bus alone in the airfield. But the airline spokesperson said these passengers refused to get off the coach.

“When the passengers were informed that the flight is cancelled due to a technical snag about 40 of them refused to get off the bus,” said an AI spokesperson.

“This was my worst air travel experience. First they delay the flight and suddenly cancel it. Worse, there was no staff to communicate with us,” said one of the passengers.

A few passengers shared videos of a spat between them and the AI terminal staff on Twitter.

Aircraft snags accounted for more than one-third domestic flight cancellations in India, in July showed data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). “The airline arranged for a Delhi-bound flight that reached the capital at 7pm,” said another passenger. These fliers were then put in a bus which reach Gwalior at 3:30 am on Monday — around 15 hours behind schedule.