Passengers stranded at Del airport for 9 hrs after AI flight to city fails to take-off
Bhubaneswar: More than 100 passengers of the Delhi-Bhubaneswar Air India flight were stranded at the
Indira Gandhi International Airport
for over nine hours from Tuesday evening after the plane failed to take-off due to an alleged technical snag.
Instead of its scheduled departure at 5.45 pm on Tuesday, the AI-2489 flight took off from Delhi at 2.47 am on Wednesday and reached Bhubaneswar at 4.53 am Wednesday.
Most of the passengers, including Union tribal affairs minister Jual Oram and Dr Subrat Kumar Acharya, a gastroenterologist and former president of AIIMS Bhubaneswar, were waiting at T3 departure gate no. 32A since 4.30 pm on Tuesday.
Oram was returning to Bhubaneswar with his family members.
He called several officials over phone and informed them about the issue. "After the delay in departure of our plane, I stayed back in Delhi on Tuesday night and booked a different flight for Wednesday evening," he added.
"I, along with my wife, son-in-law, and two grandchildren, one 8-year-old and another a Class X student, had booked tickets to Bhubaneswar," Acharya said. He said there was heavy rain in Delhi on Tuesday afternoon.
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"Somehow, we reached the airport on time. Instead of boarding the flight at 4.45 pm on Tuesday, we boarded the flight at 8.15 pm. Then we sat in the plane for around two-and-a-half hours," he added.
Acharya said the plane started to move but did not reach the runway. The crew said there was a technical glitch. "They had some formalities before deplaning the passengers. Finally, they took permission and deplaned us. The children were worried.
After hearing about the technical snag, I got scared. My family and I stayed back in Delhi. Our IndiGo flight is scheduled to take off on Wednesday night," he added.
However, several passengers stayed at Delhi airport until AI announced the flight will take-off at 2.47 am.
A passenger, J S Dash, wrote on X at 1.23 am, said, "Harassment to the passengers of flight AI 2489, which was scheduled on June 17 at 17:45 hours, was not allowed to fly and deplane till now.
Air India failed to provide alternate arrangements. Passengers, including women and children, are waiting." He posted this message at 1.23 am on Wednesday.
The airlines, in its reply, wrote, "We understand flight disruptions are quite disappointing. Please rest assured, our team is trying its best to minimise the inconvenience caused. We're alerting our airport team right away for assistance. We request you kindly get in touch with the available staff for real-time assistance."
At 1.42 am, Dash again posted, "There is no solution till now. The ground staff is also unaware of the alternate arrangement."
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