Pune: Over 200 passengers suffered major inconvenience after two separate flights of Air India Express – IX-2913 and IX-1098 – were delayed by over seven hours during the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday.While the Bengaluru-Pune flight AI Express IX-2913 was delayed by over 8 hours, the Pune to Bhubaneswar flight IX-1098 recorded a delay of over 7 hours.The Pune-bound flight from Bengaluru was scheduled to take off at 5:35 pm on Saturday. It, however, flew at 2.15am on Sunday. On the other hand, the Bhubaneswar-bound flight from Pune took off at 4.45am on Sunday, seven hours and 35 minutes after its scheduled departure of 9.10pm. Despite raising a query, the airline did not confirm to TOI whether the same aircraft was scheduled to fly both the flights.A flyer on board the Bengaluru-Pune flight said the airline stated that bad weather was delaying the flight. “We, however, could see that flights of other airlines were flying without any problems. There was an issue with some seats, as it seemed that more than one passenger was allotted the same seats. It was a nightmare considering that I was at the Bengaluru airport by 3pm for the flight. As the airport was very far away from the city, I and many other flyers couldn’t go back,” he said, requesting anonymity.Nilay, another flyer, vented his frustration on social media. “Absolute chaos in Bangalore. The Air India Express flight to Pune, scheduled for 5.35pm, is now showing 12.55am. No assurance that the flight will take off. Will you please intervene and do your duty towards passengers?” He wrote on X tagging the civil aviation minister.The same frustration of flyers was seen regarding the delay of the Pune to Bhubaneswar flight. “Passengers have a level of patience which airlines don’t bother about. They said the weather was the problem, but no proper timeline was provided for this delay. At least the airline should compensate the flyers with half the fares. Why don’t the officials intervene in these situations?” a flyer said.TOI sent a detailed query asking in which city/cities the inclement weather persisted and the reason behind the delay on WhatsApp to the spokesperson of Air India Express. An official statement from the airline was awaited till the time of going to press.
