AI 183 of May 30 was booked by 237 (plus one infant) passengers of who only 199 opted to fly when the flight did eventually take off 30 hours after schedule departure time aroun 10 pm on May 31. This wait saw some passengers reportedly faint on the hot Boeing 777 while waiting in vain for it to take off on Thursday evening and others pleading to be allowed to alight after the Nth failed attempt to get airborne on Friday evening.
AI chief operations officer Klaus Goersch wrote to these passengers on Saturday: “Please allow me to sincerely apologise on behalf of Air India for the extended delay in bringing you to San Francisco, which was caused by several technical delays and other operational constraints. We have endeavoured to rectify the technical issues, but clearly, the duration of delay was long, and the experience was not what we aspire to offer. However, your safety was the highest priority throughout.”
“As a gesture of apology, we would like to offer you a travel voucher worth $ 350, for future travel on Air India. Alternatively, we could credit this amount to you through your source of payment or bank details. Although we cannot change the past, I trust that this gesture conveys our sincere regrets for the disruption and inconvenience,” Goersch said, adding, “Once again, we are very sorry for this lapse in our service and the inconvenience caused to you…. I hope you will allow us to serve again, to a better standard, in future.”
The airline has to reply to a DGCA show cause notice where it has been asked to explain why action should not be taken against it over “repeated incidences of passengers being put to discomfort” & “time and again failing to take due care of passengers.”
The DGCA notice issued Friday says: “Al179 of 24/5 & Al 183 of 30/5 were inordinately delayed. Passengers were put to discomfort due to insufficient cooling in the cabin. Repeated (instances) of passengers being put to discomfort by Air India in violation of various DGCA provisions have come to notice…. AI has violated provisions of ‘facilities to be provided to passengers by airlines due to denied boarding, cancellation of flights and delays in flights’. AI is time and again failing in taking due care of passengers and compliance of (those rules),” the DGCA notice says. AI has been asked to explain within three days “why enforcement action (should) not be initiated against” it. SFO-bound AI 179 from Mumbai last Friday was delayed by 18 hours.