'Technical' issue delays Mumbai-London flight by 7 hours day after Delhi airport snag
The flight is now scheduled to take off at 1pm, Air India said.
Air India flight AI129, which was scheduled to take off from Mumbai airport towards London at 6:30 am (IST) on Saturday, has been delayed by nearly seven hours due to technical issues, the airlines has said.
“Due to technical difficulties, the flight will now take off at 1 pm. Passengers have been provided with refreshments,” Air India said in a statement. Data available on FlightRadar24 shows the flight's estimated take off time to be 2pm.
Technical snag at Delhi airport
On Friday, Delhi's Indira Gandhi International airport was hit by a major technical snag that led to delays of over 800 domestic and international flights. Twenty flights were also cancelled due to the failure of Automatic Message Switching System (AMSS), cutting off automatic transmission of flight plan data to air traffic controllers’ screens.
Also read: Delhi airport ops resume, but uncertainty remains: 5 unanswered questions
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) cited a “technical issue” with the AMSS as they shared updates on the status. However, there was no clarity on what the issue was or what caused it. The authorities only said that the technical issue caused delays in processing flight plan messages thus causing flight delays.
The glitch left passengers high and dry at the Delhi airport as many of them told HT that the food at airport was too expensive as they waited for the flights to resume for as long as 12 hours.
To be sure, IGI airport, one of India’s busiest, manages over 1,500 flight movements each day.
Passengers, frustrated with a slew of malfunctions to have ailed IGI airport in the last few months, were left fuming once again – with many wondering if this is how an international airport located in the Capital of a country should function. The issue was finally resolved late evening.
