The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has issued a show cause notice to Air India following a 24-hour delay of its Delhi to San Francisco flight. The delay and insufficient cooling inside the aircraft caused discomfort to several passengers.
According to reports, around 200 passengers onboard the Boeing 777 aircraft were to operate flight AI 183. The flight was originally scheduled to take off at around 1530 hours on Thursday but was delayed by around six hours before getting rescheduled for Friday. Passengers of a San Francisco-bound Air India flight faced a harrowing time due to an inordinate delay. Some fainted as the aircraft's air-conditioning system was non-functional. Passengers of the AI 183 flight also had to wait for around an hour in the aerobridge, according to a passenger.
At first, the aircraft was changed due to a technical glitch and the passengers boarded another plane, wherein the air-conditioning system was not working and as a result some of those onboard fainted, Shipa Jain, a passenger said.
The plane had aged people and children, who were feeling uneasy. Later, at around 2200 hours on Thursday, the flight was rescheduled, she added. According to her, the revised departure time was about 2000 hours and passengers had boarded the aircraft at around 1920 hours. With the air-conditioning system non-functional, passengers were agitated and after almost an hour, they came out. The passengers had to wait for nearly an hour in the aerobridge before the gates were opened to go back to the airport, she said.
The airline official said the aircraft had developed a technical issue and engineering checks were carried out. Due to the delay, the crew had crossed the Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) and also if the flight had taken off, it would have reached San Francisco when there are night landing restrictions there, the official added.
