Passengers of Air India’s Delhi-New York flight faced a harrowing time when they were kept confined inside the aircraft at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport for over six hours. Passengers had boarded the aircraft on Sunday midnight but the plane left only at 6.35 am on Monday.
An Air India spokesperson said that the flight was delayed because one of the pilots was found to be sick during the last medical examination before taking off the 16-hour flight and as per rules, he could not fly the plane.
The flight — AI-101 — inside which the passengers suffered an agonising six hours was scheduled to depart at 1.00 am.
As passengers were not allowed to deplane, they became restless with flight attendants stonewalling all information, a passenger onboard claimed. One of the pilots on the plane was declared medically unfit and the passengers had to suffer confinement till the airline arranged for a replacement.
“Therefore, a replacement was sought and it took some time,” the spokesperson said and added that inconvenience was caused to the passengers as it was a last-minute replacement.
The airline flouted the norms laid down by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), which prohibits confinement of passengers inside the aircraft for such long hours with no information being shared with passengers for the delay.
The DGCA guidelines also say that airlines should provide them food and other amenities at the terminal, in case the flight is extremely delayed. Air India said that according to norms, passengers travelling on all US-bound planes have to undergo a thorough security check and therefore, a decision was taken not to allow deplaning of passengers from the aircraft.