Air India Flight Takes 24 Hours To Reach Delhi From Pune; Passengers Face Quite An Ordeal

by Sanjana Shenoy
Air India Flight Takes 24 Hours To Reach Delhi From Pune; Passengers Face Quite An Ordeal

How long does it take to fly from Pune to Delhi? It takes just 2.5 hours! So, it comes as a huge surprise when an Air India Pune-Delhi flight took a whopping 24 hours to cover this distance. The 150 passengers on the flight faced quite an ordeal. Read on to know what exactly happened and why it took so long for a flight to cover this distance.

Air India Pune-Delhi Flight Makes Diversion To Gwalior

According to The Times Of India report, the Air India flight (AI-850) was supposed to take off from Pune at 6:50 pm and reach Delhi by 9:05 pm on Thursday. A flyer, Muqaddas Ansari stated to TOI that the flight took off from Pune airport on time. However, when approaching Delhi the captain announced that they were unable to land the plane due to weather issues. So, the flight was then diverted to Jaipur.

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However, the flyer said that the flight kept hovering in the air as Jaipur airport didn’t give it permission to land. Muqaddas Ansari later stated that the flight finally landed at Gwalior airport around 12:30 pm. On landing at Gwalior, the flyer said that lights and AC went off. This was the time passengers started shouting at the crew, many felt unwell due to lack of AC. At the terminal building, passengers were given a choice — to stay at hotels in Gwalior to travel to Delhi by road.

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Takes Passengers 24 Hours To Reach Delhi

A cabin crew stated that the Air India flight received permission to land in Gwalior as it was an Indian Air Force base. Despite the doors opening, passengers weren’t offloaded immediately. A fuel tanker arrived and pumped fuel into the aircraft. After which, both AC and lights were switched on. But it took 3 long hours for the crew to finally allow passengers to deboard. For all this time, the passengers had to sit quietly on the flight while it was being fueled.

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At 3:30 am they were transferred to the terminal building. Around 30 passengers boarded Volvo buses and reached Delhi airport from Gwalior by 6:30 am. Muqaddas Ansari stated to TOI that it was a nightmarish experience for all passengers on this flight.

This is indeed a matter of concern. But Air India hasn’t responded yet on what happened on the said flight.

Cover Image Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons