The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) sent a notice on Friday to the Tata group enterprise owned Air India airline due to its two consecutive flight delays that caused immense difficulties to over 200 passengers. The Flight Al 179 which was supposed to depart from Mumbai to San Francisco on 24th May 2024 faced a huge time delay. Along with this flight, recently Boeing 777 flight Al 183 which was supposed to depart from Delhi to San Francisco also faced a massive delay of 20 hours .
The flights were reportedly delayed due to operational issues. The passengers of the flight had to face a lot of troubles due to the carelessness of the flight authorities to make necessary arrangements to ensure the comfort of the passengers. The passengers of Al 183 flight were not given AC facilities which caused several passengers to faint in the hot weather of Delhi city.
To see in this article
According to the notice sent by DCGA, “It has come to the notice of DGCA that flight Al-179 dated 24.05.2024 and flight Al-183 dated 30.05.2024 were inordinately delayed and passengers were put to discomfort due to insufficient cooling in the cabin. Further , repeated incidences of passengers being put to discomfort by M/s Air India in violation of various DGCA CAR provisions have come to notice “.DGCA also stated that “the airlines have violated the provisions of Para 3.4 and Para 3.8 of section 3 series M part 4 on facilities to be provided on denied boarding and cancellations of flights and delays in flights”.
Air India Passengers faint due to a long delay of 20 hours
Photo credit : X users
Air India flight Boeing 777 flight Al 183 was supposed to take off on 30th May 2024 Thursday at 3 30 pm. Later the passengers were informed that another flight was rescheduled at 8pm due to technical issues in the previous flight. At almost 7: 30 pm passengers were taken into the aircraft for a departure of the flight at 8 pm, but the flight did not depart .The passengers were made to stay in the aircraft for almost 1 hour without AC facilities that even caused passengers to faint. The AC facilities of the airplane were not functioning in the hot scorching weather of Delhi.
Many passengers were seated down in the air bridge hoping that the doors would open. Later after a long wait, the passengers were sent back to the airport. A twitter user Abhishek sharma@39Abhishek twitted that the passengers were send to an hotel at 2 am informing them that the flight will rescheduled to 11 am next day. According to the latest update and @39Abhishek’s tweet , the flight is finally rescheduled to Friday 3 pm.
Responses from passengers and their relatives
Photo credit : X user
Shwetha Panj a journalist tweeted in X that” If there is a privatisation story that has failed it is @airindia @DGCAIndia AI 183 flight has been delayed for over 8 hours , passengers were made to board the plane without air conditioning, and then deplaned after some people fainted in the flight.This is inhuman! @JM_Scindia”.
Abhshek sharma @39Abhishek also tweeted in X that “@airindia please let mine and the numerous other parents stranded at the boarding area go home! AI 183 is over 8 hrs late. People were made to board the plane and sit without ac. Then deplaned and not allowed to enter the terminal because immigration was done”. The passengers also included a number of senior citizens who have been made to wait for more than 20 hours
Parush Garg @gargparush also tweeted that “My parents got stuck in this flight due to your delay of more than 8 hours with no AC working and flight was changed to 20 hours later with an additional aircraft change. Is this how you treat people especially senior citizens?” The responses from the passengers and their relatives shows the flight authorities have completely failed to provide necessary needs to its passengers.