New Delhi: Passengers of a Male-bound flight from Chennai via Thiruvananthapuram were in for an ordeal when they were forced to sit in the aircraft for two and a half hours due to a bizarre insistence by the aircraft’s commander.
The commander, as it turns out, insisted for a particular woman co-pilot to operate the flight. The commander quit Air India last week and is currently serving a six-month notice period.
According to the sources, the commander insisted Air India’s roster section on Tuesday to schedule the woman flight officer along with him on flight AI 263/264 for Wednesday.
"Roster section, however, informed him that his demand can't be met as she was already scheduled for a Delhi flight," a source said.
Later the commander called up roster section and threatened to report sick, if the particular woman pilot was not assigned the duty with him.
"When the roster section did not oblige, he reported sick on Tuesday. But this morning when he turned up to operate the flight he again insisted for the same co-pilot, forcing the airline to arrange his favourite co-pilot," one of the sources alleged.But in the process, the flight was delayed as it departed at 9.13am against its schedule time of 7am, the sources said.
Airline spokesperson was not available for comments.
(With PTI inputs)
