Mumbai: Technical glitch delays flight; passengers made to sit for 3 hrs without AC

Mumbai: As many as 282 passengers on board a Delhi-bound flight of Air India from Mumbai had a harrowing time on Saturday after they were allegedly made to sit in the aircraft for over three hours without air conditioning following a technical glitch in the Boeing 777 plane.

The flight, AI 809, which was scheduled to depart from the Chhtatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai at 11:15 am for New Delhi, took off at 2:34 pm, after a delay of nearly three-and-a-half hours, a source said.

"During this period, all the passengers remained seated in the glitch-hit plane," the source said.

A passenger, who tweeted a photo from the flight, said that the air conditioning was not working for at least one and a half hours of the wait time.

When contacted, an Air India spokesperson said that the technical snag forced the airline to delay the departure of its Mumbai-Delhi flight Saturday morning.

"Air India has ordered an inquiry to find out the glitch in the plane just before its departure," an Air India spokesperson said.

He confirmed that there were 282 passengers on board.