PMO seeks report on AI flight problems because of ministers

Show up late for a flight in India, like in most countries, and you can expect the plane to depart without you. The airline in question in both the cases is Air India.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal on Saturday urged the Civil Aviation Ministry to conduct a fair probe into the Kiren Rijiju issue, where Air India offloaded three passengers to make way for the Minister of State for Home.

Earlier this week, an Air India flight from Mumbai to New York, with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on board, was delayed by almost an hour allegedly on account of a member of his entourage.

Rijuju had claimed it was not a “delay” as the departure of the flight was “preponed” due to technical reasons. The three people offloaded were GV Srinivas, his wife GV Neelam and their son Dhruv Aryan.

Mr Rijiju said reports that the flight was delayed because of them were incorrect. “I am totally unaware whether anyone was asked to deboard. We must say sorry to them on behalf of the government and ensure that such incidents do not occur in future”, he told PTI over phone from Darjeeling.

The Leh airport, a high-security facility operated by the Indian military, has the highest elevation of any passenger air terminal in India. “In fact, they have been operating on time and serving the Indian skies well”, he said, adding that his colleagues were actually complaining that they were missing flights due to Air India’s on-time performance.

The Fadnavis incident took place on June 29th when the chief minister, along with his principal secretary Pravin Pardeshi and others, was leaving on a week-long U.S. trip. Since the Leh runway is closed for repairs at 10.35am these days, the flight timing out of Delhi was advanced to ensure that it would leave Leh before the runway was closed. However, he did not specify against whom he plans to take legal action.

Artistes perform at the Hemis festival, held every year at the Hemis Gompa monastery in Ladakh, in the last week of June.