66 AI flyers reach Mumbai from Kolkata after 22-hour ordeal

KOLKATA: For the 100-odd passengers booked on two Air India flights to Mumbai from Kolkata on Saturday, an ordinary trip turned into a never-ending ordeal. When the flight (the two were clubbed) finally took off on Sunday afternoon after umpteen delays, on board were 65 sleep-deprived men, women and children at the end of their tether.
“I hope the wait is finally over.I can’t take it anymore,” Ananya Basak told TOI moments before the flight finally took off at 2.30pm on Sunday.
Returning to Mumbai with a 16-month-old daughter after visiting her parents in Kolkata, the endless wait at the airport turned Basak into a wreck as she helplessly watched her energetic child turn irritable with hunger and then go quiet as weariness took over. “She has not had anything substantial for 24 hours as the meals served at the airport are not fit for a child,” she blurted out between sobs.
Basak was booked on flight AI 775 that was to depart at 4.45pm on Saturday. But on reaching Kolkata airport at 3pm, she learnt that her flight had been clubbed with AI 773 that was scheduled to depart at 7.40pm. But the flight didn’t take off. After prolonged delays, passengers were asked to board the flight around 10pm on Saturday.
But the ordeal was far from over. “The airhostesses had completed the safety instructions and all was set for the plane to taxi when the head stewardess announced that a technical snag had occurred and the plane would return to the terminal,” recounted colonel A R Sarkar, who was returning to his family in Pune via Kolkata and Mumbai after a stint in Dimapur.
After an hour and a half of suspense and mounting irritation, the captain told passengers that attempts to fix the snag had failed and they would have to disembark. The announcement blew the fuse in the cabin. Famished and weary, the passengers demanded that food be first served in the plane.
“Had the flight been on time, the meal would have been served around 8.30pm. It was well past 11.30pm and everyone was hungry. Children were crying. A couple of diabetic patients were ill. Since their medicines were in the luggage, they couldn’t access those. All this contributed to the chaos. The head stewardess made some fuss about finding out if it could be done, but quickly agreed to the demand on sensing the groundswell of anger within the cabin,” recalled Indradeep Samajdar of IIT Mumbai.
It was well past midnight when the passengers returned to the terminal but the nightmare was yet to be over. After another 40 minutes of uncertainty, airline staff began working on modalities to book passengers to various hotels. It was around 2pm that the airline booked prepaid cabs to take passengers to various hotels in the vicinity. Passengers said the hotels turned out to be poorly maintained guesthouses.
Like most others, Jayashree Shinde of Mumbai went to bed after 3pm, but had to be up four hours later because AI officials asked everyone to report at the airport by 8.30am for the 9.30am flight. “We rushed to the airport, deprived of sleep but anxious to fly home. But on reaching, we were told the flight would depart at 10.30am,” she said.
The flight was again pushed back to 11.55am and then 2.30pm, not because of a snag this time but due to crew shortage. Spotting chief minister Mamata Banerjee in the terminal (she was flying to Bagdogra to check how badly north Bengal had been affected by Saturday’s earthquake), the passengers related the traumatic experience to her. “The CM admonished AI officials for the harassment caused to passengers and assured us the flight would definitely go at 2.30pm,” said Shinde.
AI said Sunday morning’s delay had been due to the pilots being subject to flight duty time limitations (FDTL). Since pilots have to be alert and handle stress during flights, there are strict norms governing the duty timings to ensure that they are not fatigued and have had adequate rest.
The flight finally departed at 2.30pm with only 65 passengers on board as several others opted out. Incidentally, actress Dia Mirza, who was originally scheduled to take the 7.40pm AI flight on Saturday, was accommodated in a Jet Airways flight later in the same evening.