Around 70 passengers on a Muscat-Chennai Air India flight faced a taxing time as their flight took off three hours late from the Gulf nation due to a runway problem there. The flight was later diverted to Mumbai for "technical" reasons after which the travellers had to stay inside the aircraft for six hours, before it made the journey to Chennai. Sources, however, said the diversion to Mumbai was to swap cabin crew as they had extended their flight duty time limitation (FDTL).
Flight AI 908 was scheduled to depart Muscat at 11 pm on Sunday, but took off at 3 am, reaching Mumbai at 6 am on Monday. "We pleaded with the crew to quickly divert the flight to Chennai, but they refused. They asked us to deplane, which we refused as we may have had to take another flight and would have been charged extra for our luggage," said Raja Hussain, one of the passengers. Almost all the passengers, who were Indians working in Muscat on their annual trip back home.
Mr Sangogam, another
passenger said, "They also brought in security staff to bully us into submission when we began arguing with the airline staff. We were being treated like inmates and undertrials being transported to prison. Almost all of us were returning home after two years and a single passenger was carrying luggage allocated for three people. No other airline would have allowed such an amount in the first place and would have charged a hefty price even if it did. Moreover, no refreshments were served, which added to our fatigue."
The flight finally took off late morning from Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport and reached the Anna International Airport at around 1.30 pm. Mr Sangogam added, "Many of us had missed connecting flights to other cities like Madurai, Mangalore and Vijaywada owing to the delay."
An AI spokesperson confirmed the development and said, "The flight took off late from Muscat
owing to a problem at the runway there and had to be diverted to Mumbai for a technical change." Airline sources said that the departure delay from Muscat caused the crew to extend their FDTL and therefore, the flight was diverted to Mumbai for a crew change.
Mohan K. Ponnath
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