Upset over the inordinate delay in their flight’s departure, more than 230 passengers of Air India flight 727 from Mumbai to Dubai have blocked passengers of all international flights from boarding their planes in Mumbai’s Sahar international terminal.
At the time of going to press, they are demanding that Air India apologise for the more than 13-hour delay of flight AI 727, scheduled to leave at 5.30 am on Tuesday, and that they be allowed to leave Mumbai before any other international flight takes off.
At 4.20 pm, Air India managers pleaded with the passengers to allow the crew of their flight to leave the terminal, so that they can ready the plane for take off.
“The passengers who did not believe the managers, sent four fellow passengers with the crew to ensure that it is their flight that is being prepared for departure,” a passenger at the international terminal told rediff.com over phone.
The nightmare for the more 230 Dubai-bound passengers began at 3:30 am.
“We got in the queue for check-in at 3:30 am for the 5:30 am flight. To our surprise, there were just two counters to handle all the passengers and the check-in went on till 6:30,” Shreejit Ravindran, 32, who had to join work in Dubai on Tuesday morning, said.
After that, the passengers were left in the lurch till 10 am. “Till 10 o’clock we did not know what was happening. There was no announcement made about the delay, nor was there any official to come and speak to us. Only after a few passengers began raising their voice did Air India send a manager,” said Abdul Rahman, 30, another passenger working in Dubai.
The airline’s manager was clueless about what was happening. All he could offer them was a meager meal as breakfast. “Then another manager came and told us that at 1:30 pm, they will send us in a flight via Delhi. Soon, it was 1:30, but there was no flight. After that, the manager came to us and said they had arranged for a direct flight from Mumbai, and that we did not need to go through the hassles of going via Delhi and issued us new boarding passes,” Shreejit said.
But that was not the end of their ordeal. “Even that flight was nowhere to be seen. At 4 pm, a new manager, claiming to be new on the shift and feigning ignorance of the day’s events, came to us and told our flight would depart at 5 pm. That was when we decided we have had it. First we tried calling up the media. But the media persons who came to airport said the authorities were not allowing them entry. So we decided that we would block all passengers of all airlines till our flight departs,” Abdul said.
At the time of writing this report, the passengers were still blocking other flights, and the four passengers who had gone with the crew had not come back.
Further details are awaited.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/may/15airindia.htm
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May 15, 2007 at 2:33 pm