Air India’s Vancouver flight from Delhi of June 1 finally departed at 3.15 a.m. on June 2 after a delay of nearly 22 hours, a source said.
| Photo Credit: PTI

Air India’s Vancouver flight from Delhi of June 1 finally departed at 3.15 a.m. on June 2 after a delay of nearly 22 hours, a source said.

The flight was scheduled to take off at 5.30 a.m. on June 1 but a “technical” issue forced the airline to reschedule it.

“The Delhi-Vancouver flight of Air India, which was to depart on Saturday morning, finally left at around 3.15 a.m. on Sunday,” the source said.

“AI 185…was delayed because of technical issues and subsequently due to crew coming under the mandatory Flight Duty Time Limitations,” an Air India spokesperson had said in a statement on June 1.

This was at least the third time in the last one week that Air India’s ultra-long haul flights had to face inordinate delay for one reason or the other.

Earlier, after a delay of more than 30 hours, the airline’s Delhi-San Francisco flight, which was originally scheduled to depart at around 1530 hrs on May 30, took off at 2155 hrs the next day.

However, despite the passengers’ plight due to the massive delay, Tata Group-owned Air India did not issue any official statement.

“If there is a privatisation story that has failed it is @airindia @DGCAIndia AI 183 flight has been delayed for over 8 hours , passengers were made to board the plane without air conditioning, and then deplaned after some people fainted in the flight.This is inhuman! @JM_Scindia,” Shweta Punj, a journalist had said in a post on X on May 30 night.

Air India, which was earlier under the ownership of the Indian government, was privatised and handed over to Tata Group in January 2022.

On May 30, the airline apologised and offered a travel voucher of $350 each to the passengers of the San Francisco flight for the huge delay, owing to multiple factors including non-functioning of the Boeing 777 aircraft’s air-conditioning system.

The previous day, aviation regulator DGCA issued a show cause notice to Air India for some flight delays and failure to take due care of the passengers.

In the show cause notice, the watchdog 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.

A passenger on a Delhi-Bengaluru flight slammed Air India after receiving a broken window seat despite paying additional money for it. The incident happened on Thursday, April 4 when the passenger noticed the broken seat, following which the airline enlisted the help of an engineer. The engineer, however, could not fix the broken seat, the passenger claimed. He further questioned Air India for their poor services and asked why the airline couldn’t even provide a proper seat for passengers. 

“Paid extra 1k for a broken window seat (22A) on Air India AI512 from DEL to BLR on 4th Apr. They called the engineer to fix it, but he couldn’t. Is this what I paid the flight fare for? Can’t I at least expect a proper seat after paying so much?” the passenger wrote on X and also tagged Directorate General of Civil Aviation and Ministry Civil Aviation. 

See the post here:

Paid extra 1k for a broken window seat (22A) on Air India AI512 from DEL to BLR on 4th Apr. They called the engineer to fix it, but he couldn’t. Is this what I paid the flight fare for? Can’t I atleast expect a proper seat after paying so much? @airindia@DGCAIndia@Ministry_CApic.twitter.com/j2vxlcRbnt

— Name cannot be blank (@Kaijee04) April 6, 2024

Air India replied to the passenger’s tweet and asked him for the booking details. They later assured him that the airline would investigate the matter and take corrective action.

”Hi, thank you for sharing the details. Your feedback is crucial, and we apologize for falling short of expectations. We’ll investigate the matter and take corrective action. Thank you for bringing this to our attention,” the airline wrote. 

Hi, thank you for sharing the details. Your feedback is crucial, and we apologize for falling short of expectations. We’ll investigate the matter and take corrective action. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

— Air India (@airindia) April 6, 2024

In January this year, Shreyti Garg, a content creator, also highlighted the subpar in-flight facilities despite the expensive ticket prices. Travelling with her 2.5-year-old and seven-month-old kids, Ms Garg expressed disappointment as the in-flight entertainment and lights for three seats weren’t working, leaving her and her family in the dark. The broken seats and lack of entertainment made the journey less pleasant than expected, prompting her to share her concerns in an Instagram video.