Around 100 passengers of a Delhi bound Air India flight were left stranded at Rajkot airport on Sunday night after the pilot refused to fly saying his duty hours were over.The passengers who were stranded at the airport included three BJP MPs, Rajkot MP Mohan Kundariya, Jamnagar MP Poonam Maadam, and newly elected Rajya Sabha MP Kesaridevsinh Jhala. All of them had to wait for two hours before the flight was eventually cancelled and alternate arrangements were made for them to get them to their destinations.
Rajkot MP Mohan Kundariya told The Indian Express that the pilot refused to fly the plane saying his duty hours were over. He narrated the incident and said the passengers waited for two hours inside the plane. They even talked to officers in Delhi and complained. However, it did not help as the pilot said he was too tired to fly any further. Eventually, the passengers disembarked the flight around 10:30 pm.
What did Air India say?
Expressing its regret over the incident, Air India said the flight was delayed and the cockpit crew came under the Flight Duty Time Limit (FDTL) regulations which was “non-negotiable”.
An Air India spokesperson said the July 23 flight was delayed due to “operational reasons”. “Subsequently the cockpit crew came under the Flight Duty Time Limit (FDTL) regulations for which they could not operate the flight as per regulatory norms. FDTL regulation is non-negotiable and cannot be compromised due to flight safety reasons,” they added.
The airlines made arrangements for the stranded passengers. It offered to arrange for taxis to Ahmedabad to help them catch connecting flights to their destinations. Air India also offered full refunds to those who wanted to cancel their flight tickets and accommodate those who didn’t mind flying on rescheduled flights the next day, Kundariya said. “Among the 100 odd passengers, seven had to catch international flights from elsewhere,” he added.
He further said that he had to fly to Delhi in relation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Rajkot scheduled for July 27. He had a return ticket to Rajkot on Monday. “But as the flight couldn’t take off, I had to cancel my visit,” he said.
As per Kundariya, the flight was originally scheduled to take off at 7:30 pm on Sunday but it landed in Rajkot an hour later. “It is understandable that flight arrivals get delayed sometimes and consequently, departures also get delayed. I have been flying to Delhi from Rajkot for the past 10 years. However, I have never had to deal with such a situation,” he noted.