Yep, perfectly normal on Air India, one of the sloppiest and most corrupt airlines within *A. Safety procedures are more than questinable, most of the "inconveniences" are solved by "charity contributions".

You are lucky to have departed more or less on time, as they apparently did not wait for a drunken corrupt Indian politician. This is waht normally happens! You are also lucky that none of these crooks requested your seat for his concubine.

Air India published departure times have to be interpreted that the planes do not leave earlier than indicated in the OAG.

AI is probably the lousiest airline within *A, they should not classify them as * but rather than "WC A". Somebody was certainly drunk when they admitted this flying s...t into *A.