Testing time for Air India’s Pune-bound flyers

Pune: Around 100 passengers set to fly from Delhi to Pune on an Air India flight late night on Tuesday sat inside a stalled aircraft amid the sweltering heat, deboarded and boarded again, before sitting cooped up for long yet again until the aircraft finally started to taxi three hours later.The flight (AI-2609) was to take off from the national capital at 11.50pm and land in Pune at 2.05am on Wednesday. Additionally, the cabin crew provided little to no information adding to the frustration and stress of the passengers.Wakad resident Rohit Raj, who was on the flight, said there was an initial delay and the boarding was complete by 11.40pm. "The pilots entered the cockpit around 11.50pm and then one of them left to check the aircraft. Around 45 minutes later, one of the pilots announced there was a technical problem and also food for passengers had gone bad due to the heat. We kept sitting in the heat as the AC wasn't working properly. Soon many flyers lost their cool on the overall inconvenience," he said.Raj had gone to Delhi for work and was travelling alone. He said all passengers were deboarded around 12.55am and taken to the terminal building. "There were many children. Senior citizens were angry and frustrated. After waiting for an hour, we were told to proceed for security check again. Everyone was tired and sleepy, but had no choice. Around 2am the boarding started again. The same was completed by 2.30am and we thought that the flight would take off. Fortunately, this time, the air conditioning was working fine," he added."I dozed off and woke up 30 minutes later to realise the aircraft had not taken off. Flyers questioned the cabin crew who had no answers. They said they didn't know what was happening and maybe the ATC was still to give permission to fly. All the passengers were too tired to react and waited. Finally, around 3.15am, the aircraft began to taxi and finally took off. We landed in Pune around 5am," Raj told TOI.TOI reached out to an Air India spokesperson, but their reply was awaited till the time of going to press.
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