Ahmedabad: When Nilesh Mehta along with his wife and eight-year-old son boarded Air India flight 144 from Frankfurt to Ahmedabad via Mumbai, little did he know that the routine trip would turn into an ordeal.
The Canada-based Mehtas, along with 227 other passengers, ended up spending 25 hours, either inside the aircraft or at Mumbai terminal, for a journey that usually takes about nine hours, reports Times of India.
The passengers spent almost an entire night - from just before midnight till about 4am - sitting inside the Boeing 777-300ER at Mumbai airport. The reason: a Jet Airways flight from Indore had stalled on the runway at Ahmedabad preventing other flights from landing.
So the AI flight, which was scheduled to arrive at Ahmedabad's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International airport at 9.10pm on Thursday, finally landed at 12.45pm on Friday - about 16 hours later. Because it couldn't land in Ahmedabad, it was diverted back to Mumbai on Thursday night/Friday morning. Then, around 4am, it took off from Mumbai for Ahmedabad, but had to come back. The passengers were taken to the terminal around 5am. The flight finally took off from Mumbai around noon and landed in Ahmedabad at 12.45pm.
AI authorities maintained that since the flight was scheduled to take off from Mumbai "any moment", the passengers were made to stay inside the plane when it was diverted from Ahmedabad the first time.
A change of crew also added to the delay. Said an AI official: "We had to wait for air traffic control clearance once the flight got diverted to Mumbai but they kept us on hold as there was no parking bay clearance. Also, the AI crew member had to be replaced as per the rule and this delayed the already late departure of the flight from Mumbai."
After the plane finally landed at SVP airport on Friday afternoon, agitated passengers complained that the plane took off thrice from Mumbai airport and each time took a round in the sky and landed back.
Relatives of the passengers who had come from as far as Rajpipla, Vadodara, Anand and other places could be seen camping at the airport. Pinakin Pandya, whose 61-year-old mother was on board, had been waiting at the airport since Thursday evening. She said, "I was very anxious as my mother was travelling alone. AI authorities only added to my worries as they were not forthcoming on the delay."
Said Dr Anant Mehta, another relative of a passenger, "I spoke with my family members who had to sit inside the parked plane at Mumbai airport till six in the morning. They had a difficult time after spending so many hours inside the plane."
