The source said that the Air India flight from Vancouver to Delhi finally took off on June 1 at 3.15 a.m. on June 2 after a delay of almost 22 hours. | Photo source: PTI
The source said that the Air India flight from Vancouver to Delhi finally took off on June 1 at 3.15 a.m. on June 2 after a delay of almost 22 hours.
The flight was scheduled to take off on June 1 at 5:30 a.m., but “technical” problems forced the airline to change the date.
“The Air India flight from Delhi to Vancouver, which was scheduled to depart on Saturday morning, finally departed around 3.15 am on Sunday,” the source said.
“AI 185… was delayed due to technical issues and subsequently due to the crew not complying with mandatory flight duty time limits,” an Air India spokesperson said in a statement on June 1.
This is at least the third time in the last week that Air India’s ultra-long-haul flights have had to face excessive delays for some reason.
Earlier, after a delay of over 30 hours, the airline’s flight from Delhi to San Francisco, which was originally scheduled to depart at around 3.30 pm on May 30, took off at 9.55 pm the next day.
However, despite the plight of passengers due to the huge delay, Tata Group’s Air India has not issued any official statement.
Air India, which was previously owned by the Indian government, was privatized and handed over to the Tata Group in January 2022.
On May 30, the airline apologized and offered passengers on a flight to San Francisco a $350 travel credit each for the massive delay caused by multiple factors, including a non-functioning air conditioning system on the Boeing 777 plane.
The previous day, aviation regulator DGCA had issued a notice to Air India due to some flight delays and lack of proper care of passengers.
In the show cause notice, the regulator mentioned the inordinate delay of two international flights – AI 183 from Delhi to San Francisco on May 30 and AI 179 from Mumbai to San Francisco on May 24.
