- JEDDAH: Air India passengers, a majority of them Umrah pilgrims, reporting at King Abdulaziz International Airport to catch their flight that was supposed to leave at 2 a.m.
- on Wednesday, were in for a rude shock when they were told about the flight's cancellation due to a flash strike by the national carrier's engineers in India.
"We managed to inform our business class passengers, but could not contact most of the economy class passengers, as they were already heading for the airport," Deepak Anand, Air India manager for the Western Region, told Arab News.
He said about 230 passengers who had confirmed bookings on the AI flight (AI 891) were transported to various hotels. "We have asked for a jumbo aircraft (Boeing 747) to be sent so that both today's backlog and tomorrow's confirmed passengers could fly from Jeddah. The flight is expected to leave for Mumbai at 2 a.m. on Thursday," Anand said.
The flight cancellation was caused by the non-arrival of the airline's regular flight on Tuesday night from New Delhi due to the strike," Anand added.
AI's earlier Boeing 747 flight was scheduled to arrive from Hyderabad late Tuesday and expected to leave Jeddah for Kozhikode shortly before Tuesday midnight.
Anand said business class passengers were being transported to Jeddah Trident Hotel and economy class to certain other hotels.