An Indigo aircraft.
Credit: PTI Photo
An Indigo flight operating between Mumbai and Qatar was delayed for nearly five hours on Sunday. The passengers claimed that the flight that was scheduled to take off at 3:55 am from Mumbai did not take to the air even at 9 am, leaving around 250 to 300 passengers stranded at the airport.
Passengers were reportedly made to sit inside the aircraft for five hours and not allowed to deboard the plane as immigration was over.
The passengers were eventually asked to leave the aircraft and wait inside the holding area at the Mumbai airport citing some technical issues with the plane.
The flight is now expected to take off later in the day from the Mumbai airport, news agency PTI said quoting sources in the know.
The airline's spokesperson later issued an apology for the delay and said that the customers were being provided hotels and were being rebooked as per their final destination.
The incident led to chaos at the airport with the passengers alleging that they were not given food or water and no IndiGo official is ready to talk to them.
IndiGo, on the other hand claimed that there were ample arrangements for the passengers. "IndiGo flight 6E 1303 operating from Mumbai to Doha was delayed due to a technical reason. Our airport team immediately provided assistance to the affected customers and provided refreshments and necessary arrangements. The aircraft tried to depart for its destination a couple of times but had to finally be called off due to the extended time lag on account of various procedural delays," its spokesperson told news agency ANI.
Several passengers flagged the issue on social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter).
"6E1303 Mumbai -Doha flight is stuck at Mumbai Airport since 4 hours due to technical problem.The immigration authority is not giving permission to offload the passengers," a user wrote at 7:16 am tagging IndiGo and Airports Authority of India.
To this, the airline replied, "Hi, we sincerely regret the inconvenience. We request you to kindly share your contact number via DM so we may connect with you over a call."
Earlier on Friday, an IndiGo flight from Mumbai to Phuket was diverted to Penang in Malaysia due to bad weather conditions, according to the airline.