All three diverted to CDG because of weather at FRA.
NEW DELHI: Over 700 passengers of three Air India flights, from India to various destinations abroad, spent over a day in Paris after they were
diverted to the Charles de Gaulle airport on Saturday morning due to bad weather over Frankfurt. With none of them carrying transit visas, the passengers were stuck at the cramped airport for close to 10 hours before government intervention helped them get accommodation in hotels.
According to sources, when the three AI flights, Delhi-Frankfurt-Chicago, Ahmedabad-Frankfurt and Mumbai-Frankfurt-Newark, landed at the airport, French authorities reportedly asked airline officials to keep passengers on board as they were expecting the weather to clear up any time. But when that did not happen, the passengers were deplaned and made to sit inside the terminal, which was bursting at the seams with passengers from several other diverted flights, apart from its own traffic. Even restaurants ran out of food, but passengers could not be shifted as they did not have the requisite transit visas.
‘‘Government intervention was required to grant visas to our passengers after which they were accommodated in hotels. All the passengers were flown to their destination by Sunday. The delay and any inconvenience caused is deeply regretted but there was nothing that we could have done,’’ said an airline spokesperson.
‘‘We were kept at the Paris airport for over eight hours without food and then suddenly transferred to a hotel where we didn’t get our luggage. I had a conference to attend in the US and I will miss it because of the over 24-hour delay,’’ said Deepak Gupta, a passenger on board AI 127 from Delhi to Chicago.
Poor contingency planning is not a reason to absolve AI of blame.
I've dealt with diversions into CDG for my airline and while ADP are huge a$$holes to deal with on the transit visa issue, there is no excuse whatsoever to leave multiple planeloads of pax stranded as they did. If CDG is your designated alternate, you darn well better have a recovery plan in place from the alternate.
Contingency planning for food and basic amenities yes. Planning for passengers transit visa no. Lets give AI a break. Atleast in this case they managed to get the right thing done and even their spokesperson was borderline apologetic and polite.
Contingency planning for food and basic amenities yes. Planning for passengers transit visa no. Lets give AI a break. Atleast in this case they managed to get the right thing done and even their spokesperson was borderline apologetic and polite.
I don't think all of Indian aviation's worst moments should be attributed to AI (though they try their best !!!). I'm an AI critic, but once in a while, they do manage to get it right - maybe that spokesman was fired later for not upholding corporate values ;-)
Contingency planning for food and basic amenities yes. Planning for passengers transit visa no. Lets give AI a break. Atleast in this case they managed to get the right thing done and even their spokesperson was borderline apologetic and polite.
Sorry, but as a professional in this field, that kind of argument gets people fired.
Visa issues are near the top of my list of criteria when evaluating suitability for diversion alternates. This was not an emergency technical diversion where the priority was to get the aircraft on the ground immediately. A diversion recovery program should have been rolling before the aircraft even touched down in Paris.
The fact that this was allowed to occur under the circumstance is a very poor reflection on AI's operational planning.
I was in one of these flights. It was the most horrible experience i have ever had. We were kept in a holding area at the Paris airport for about 20 hours with just a sandwich and a bottle of water. Given a transit visa at 3 am in the morning, shuttled to the hotel and required to check in at the airport at 3 pm. waited again at paris airport for 7 hours before boarding the plane at 10 and then waiting again for 2 hours before the flight took off at 12 am midnight. when we reached Newark, we found to our horror and dismay that our luggage had not arrived with us. Air India staff at newark were completely out of sorts. Finally got our baggage on Wednesday. I was there for a managers conference with people from 35 other nations without my formals. it made me look like a fool. Have reached India yesterday with a firm decision in my mind. NEVER FLY AIR INDIA, EVER.
