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Air India makes passengers wait for 7 hours, then cancels flight

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Around 150 passengers who boarded Air India's Mumbai to Newark flight at 1.30 am on Saturday had a harrowing night after the airline first made them wait almost seven hours owing to a technical snag, only to inform them at 8 am that the flight had been cancelled.

What do the passengers say?
The fuming passengers alleged that the airline staff did not bother to keep them in the loop about the cancellation even as they waited inside the aircraft for about four hours. They learned about it only after one of the passengers checked the flight's status on his phone, and discovered that it had been cancelled.
One of the passengers claimed that the cabin crew made them wait on board for four hours. "One person then decided to check the status of the flight online and found that the flight had been cancelled. He notified fellow passengers and that was when they started looking for the cabin crew for further clarification. To their dismay, there were no crew members on board and the doors of plane were open," the passenger said.

When did they come to know about the cancellation?
Finally, at about 8 am, almost 7 hours after their boarding time, the passengers were told that their flight had been cancelled and that they will be put on a flight the next day.
"Why was there was no responsible official to guide the passengers about further course even two hours after boarding?" asked Dr Arun Shah, consulting nephrologist at Lilavati hospital, who was among the affected passengers.

What is AI's defence?
An Air India spokesperson said that flight AI 191 had developed a technical snag in its wheel while the passengers were sitting in the aircraft. As the snag could not be corrected then, it was decided that the passengers would be shifted into another aircraft. However, due to issues regarding the flying-time limits of the crew members, the flight had to finally be canceled. Commenting on the allegation that passengers learned about the flight cancellation from the internet, the spokesperson denied it, saying that such a thing was not possible as the passengers were sitting inside the aircraft.

Another delay
Airport sources said another airline's flight to London encountered a similar problem due to crew member issues and ATC congestion because of a mock drill being carried out at the airport.

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