JEDDAH – More than 400 passengers, including a member of India's parliament, have been stranded for several hours at Jeddah's King Abdulaziz International Airport since early Wednesday morning as an Air India flight did not take off due to a technical glitch. The Kozhikode-bound passengers will be flown on another flight at 12.30 p.m. Thursday, according to a senior Air India official. Subsequently, Air India has rescheduled the departure of flights to Kozhikode and Hyderabad on Thursday and Friday. E.T. Muhammad Basheer, national secretary of the Indian Union Muslim League and member of parliament, was among the stranded passengers who were checked in on Flight AI962, which was scheduled to leave Jeddah at 12.15 a.m. Wednesday. Air India officials did not give the passengers, who were waiting in the departure lounge, clear information about the fate of their flight even after the scheduled departure time, Basheer told Saudi Gazette. “When we contacted the officials after a few hours of waiting, they informed us that the aircraft developed some technical glitch and it might take some time for departure. I returned from the airport after 7.30 a.m. and Air India officials took other passengers to hotels after 9,” he said. Basheer said he contacted Pankaj Shrivastava, commercial director of Air India in New Delhi, to resolve the problem. “He assured me that the company would send two aircraft from Mumbai and New Delhi on Thursday to take the passengers home,” said Basheer, who left Jeddah on Wednesday night aboard a New Delhi-bound flight. Muhammad Nour, one of the passengers, said they were asked to queue up for boarding around midnight. The passengers, who included elderly Umrah pilgrims as well as women and children, had to remain in the queue for nearly one and a half hours before they were informed that the flight would be delayed further,” he said, adding that one passenger received a call about the death of his father while he was standing in the queue. Speaking to Saudi Gazette, Feroz Khan, manager of Air India, said the aircraft showed signs of technical defects just before landing. “On inspection after landing, the engineers could not pinpoint the precise cause of the glitch. Since we had completed all the procedures, our hope was that the flight could be ready for takeoff any moment,” he said, adding that this was the reason why the officials could not inform the passengers about the exact departure time. Feroz Khan said the Kozhikode-bound flight at 12.15 a.m. Thursday would now take off at 5.15 p.m., and Friday's early morning Hyderabad flight is rescheduled at 9.15 a.m.
