Hyderabad: Air India flight AI 966 from Jeddah, carrying 229 passengers, landed in Mumbai on Friday instead of its scheduled arrival in Hyderabad at 7.10 am after the airline decided to fly directly to its final destination. Several city-based passengers on the flight said they were looking forward to casting their votes on arrival in Hyderabad, while a few others were visiting the city to attend funerals.
The Air India authorities in Mumbai told the passengers that the plane had to be flown directly to Mumbai due to bad weather in Hyderabad. However, the passengers countered, saying that Saudi Airlines flight SVA 754 from Jeddah landed in Hyderabad at its scheduled time of 11.10 am.
When this newspaper contacted sources in Hyderabad airport, they said no other take off or landing was affected by bad weather on Friday morning. They said British Airways flight 276 took off from the city airport at 7:39 am on Friday.
A video of the chaos at Mumbai airport where the passengers demanded proper explanation from the airline officials and arrangement of another flight to ferry them back to Hyderabad has been circulating on the social media on Friday.
They were finally sent back to Hyderabad around 3 pm on a flight which was going from Mumbai to Jeddah via Hyderabad. They could land in the city only around 4.30 pm, which marred their possibilities of casting their votes. Air India officials were unavailable for comments.
