An Indigo airlines flight 6E 694, with 177 people on board, was delayed for five hours Wednesday, May 2, due to bad weather conditions at New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport. A few passengers of the Guwahati-bound flight decided to deplane as they were furious for not being informed ahead of the delay in the flight timings.
The group of passengers decided to deplane on their own, thus breaking the rules. Passengers are not allowed to get out of the aircraft unless they are asked by the airline to do so, NDTV reported.
The flight was supposed to depart to Guwahati at 6.30 PM but it only took off at 11.30 PM –leading to a five-hour delay.
Indigo airlines issued a statement regarding the delay and said that it "regretted the inconvenience caused to the passengers" and added that the delay was caused to due to the bad weather conditions in the national capital, Press Trust of India reported.
Dust storms recently hit Delhi that led to quite a few flights being delayed at the IGI airport. There were reportedly close to 21 flights that were diverted from the New Delhi airport.
The Central Industrial Security Force's (CISF) who are in charge of the airport security in IGI had stopped the frustrated passengers from gathering and walking on the tarmac. Some of the passengers had also allegedly tried to block the taxiway.
Indigo's response
The airline issued a statement soon after the incident. "IndiGo regrets the inconvenience caused to the passengers which was due to severe weather condition. With respect to flight 6E 694 Delhi to Guwahati, IndiGo started boarding around 2015 hours. However, the thunderstorm intensified due to which the aircraft could not depart and had to wait for a respective departure slot," PTI quoted the official statement.
The statement further added: "After the boarding and the prolonged waiting due to weather conditions, the pilots went out of flight duty time. Therefore, a new crew was arranged who had to wait for the respective departure slots to be given, thus further delaying the IndiGo flight 6E 694 to Guwahati."
The airlines had also provided accommodation and ground transport to the affected passengers in Guwahati.
