Over 250 passengers created a ruckus at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Maharaj Shivaji International Airport over the seven-hour delay of an Air India flight. Flight AI 031 was scheduled to depart from Mumbai to Ahmedabad at 0135 hours but left at around 0820 hours.
The Quint spoke to some of the protesting passengers.
The flight was supposed to take off at 0135 am and till then it showed on the board that it was on time, but then it started getting delayed. Every one hour we asked them, “When will you take off?” but we were given no fixed time. Then finally in the morning they told us that there is no pilot.Mr Nandish Mehta, Passenger on AI 031
Quoting an Air India spokesperson, PTI reported that, "The flight was delayed due to the flight duty time limitation (FDTL) issue and crew constraints".
When the Boeing 777 aircraft failed to take off by early morning, passengers sitting at the boarding area blocked the gate and demanded answers for the delay. They were told by Air India officials that no pilots were available at that time.
A few angry passengers threatened to block all services being provided by Air India at the Mumbai International Airport till they were air bound. Passengers questioned the officials as to why were they not notified about the delay sooner, since they were forced to spend the night at the boarding area without any additional services being extended to them by the carrier.
One of them, Nandish Mehta, told The Quint, “When we asked them to put us up at their lounge area, they bluntly refused. It was so frustrating. If we knew earlier that there would be such a massive delay then we would have made other arrangements.”
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