Air India flight Delhi-Vancouver takes off 22 hours late after third incident in a week

According to a source, the June 1 Air India flight from Delhi to Vancouver finally took off at 3:15 a.m. on June 2, after a delay of nearly 22 hours.

The flight was scheduled to take off at 5:30 a.m. on June 1, but a “technical” problem forced the airline to postpone it.

“The Delhi-Vancouver Air India flight, which was scheduled to depart on Saturday morning, finally took off at around 3.15 am on Sunday,” the source said.

“AI 185 … was delayed due to technical issues and subsequently because the crew fell below the prescribed flight duty time restriction,” an Air India spokesperson said in a statement on June 1.

This was at least the third time in a week that Air India’s ultra-long-haul flights had been excessively delayed for one reason or another.

Previously, the airline’s Delhi-San Francisco flight, which was originally scheduled to depart at around 3.30 p.m. on May 30, was delayed by more than 30 hours and did not depart until 9.55 p.m. the next day.

Despite the distress of passengers due to the massive delay, Air India, a Tata Group-owned airline, did not issue an official statement.

“If there is a failed privatisation story, it is @airindia @DGCAIndia. Flight AI 183 was delayed for over 8 hours, passengers were forced to board without air conditioning and were thrown off the plane after some people fainted during the flight. This is inhumane! @JM_Scindia,” said journalist Shweta Punj in a post on X on the evening of May 30.

Air India, formerly owned by the Indian government, was privatized and handed over to the Tata Group in January 2022.

On May 30, the airline apologized for the huge delay and offered passengers on the San Francisco flight a travel voucher worth $350 each. The delay was due to several factors, including a defective air conditioning system on the Boeing 777.

The previous day, the aviation authority DGCA had sent Air India a request for comment regarding several flight delays and a lack of passenger care.

In the call for comments, the regulator mentioned the excessive delay of two international flights – AI 183 from Delhi to San Francisco on May 30 and AI 179 from Mumbai to San Francisco on May 24.