The pilot of an Air India flight from London-Delhi refused to fly after he made an emergency landing in Jaipur due to bad weather. As per India Today report, after about 2 hours of the emergency landing at Jaipur, the Delhi ATC did give clearance to flight to resume its operations, however, the pilot refused to fly citing flight duty time limitations and duty hours.
The incident occurred on Sunday i.e. on 25 June, when an AI flight 112 was scheduled to reach Delhi at 4 am on Sunday, however was diverted to Jaipur due to bad weather, the report said. More than 350 passengers were left stranded at the airport. Some passengers also posted videos on Twitter slamming the carrier as no assistance was provided to them to reach to their final destination Delhi. Report also state that after waiting for more than more than six hours, some passengers were sent to Delhi by a Volvo bus while some were sent by cabs. Report also state that some passengers also proceeded through same Air India flight after replacement crew was arranged.
One passenger also shared a series of videos on his Twitter account and wrote, “Passengers of AI112 flying from London to Delhi have been diverted to Jaipur due to bad weather but passengers have not been assisted with any recourse to reaching their final destinations. JM_Scindia please assist us urgently. We did manage to speak with Jaipur MP Col Rajyavardhan Rathore despite which we have received no assistance from the authorities at #JaipurAirport.”
The airline also replied to his tweet and said, “Our team is trying its best to minimize the inconvenience caused. ”
Earlier on 22 June, DGCA suspended the licence of an Air India pilot for one year for allowing an unauthorised person in the cockpit of the Chandigarh-Leh flight earlier this month. The licence of the Pilot-in-command was suspended for one year while the licence of the First Officer was suspended for a period of one month. “On 03.06.2023, the Pilot in Command of M/s Air India flight AI-458 (Chandigarh – Leh) allowed an unauthorized person into the cockpit during departure and the person remained in the cockpit throughout the flight,” the DGCA said in the statement. The first officer “did not raise any concern” for the unauthorized entry of the person into the cockpit or report the violation, it said. The carrier was last month slapped a fine of ₹30 lakh for not reporting a similar incident that took place on its Dubai-Delhi flight in February this year.
Meanwhile, Tata Group owned Air India signed the purchase agreements to buy 470 aircraft from Airbus and Boeing. The official statement by Air India said that the airline company has ordered 250 Airbus aircraft and 220 new Boeing jets worth $70 billion at list prices. The Tata-owned airline signed separate purchase agreements with the two planemakers at the Paris Airshow for the jets and some services.
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