Passengers made to sit inside aircraft for 4 hrs

The flight to Mumbai was scheduled to depart at 5 am. Though all the passengers arrived early in the morning, the airline staff announced that the flight would depart only at 7 am because of a technical snag. At 7 am, however, they announced that the flight would be delayed by two more hours. Sources said that after 9 am, they issued a boarding pass and all the passengers got inside the flight at 9.20 am. But the flight did not take-off for a long time. When they enquired with the crew, there allegedly was no proper response.

The passengers were made to sit inside the craft till 1 pm. Sources said that as per the rules, passengers should not be allowed to sit inside an idle flight for more than two hours. Irked over the ordeal, the passengers began to argue with the air crew, and few of them contacted the airport officials and quarrelled with them.

According to airport sources, there was a woman from Tambaram among the passengers who was heading to Mumbai to attend her brother’s funeral. But due to the delay, she could not reach there. She said that if the airlines had informed earlier about the delay, she could have collected the refund and booked another flight.

The flight finally departed to Mumbai around 1.19 pm. Sources said that non-availability of the pilot was the reason for the delay but airlines denied that and said it was caused by a technical snag.