Air India's Delhi-San Francisco faces inordinate delay; rescheduled for Friday

Air India flight AI 183 rescheduled due to technical issue, passengers offered refund, rescheduling, and hotel accommodation.

Passengers of a San Francisco-bound Air India flight had a tough time at the Delhi airport on May 30 evening as the departure was delayed for more than six hours due to a technical issue with the aircraft.

The flight AI 183, which was to be operated with a Boeing 777 aircraft and take off at around 1530 hours on Thursday, has been rescheduled and will now take off at 1500 hours on Friday, according to an airline official.

Some passengers of the flight took to social media complaining about the delay and one of them said that there was no air conditioning in the plane.

The airline official said the aircraft had developed a technical issue and engineering checks were carried out.

Due to the delay, the crew had crossed the Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) and also if the flight had taken off, it would have reached San Francisco when there are night landing restrictions there, the official added.

The flight is now scheduled to take off at 1500 hours on Friday, the official said and added that passengers were offered the options of full refund, complimentary rescheduling and hotel accommodation.

In March, the aviation security watchdog Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) issued new guidelines that will allow the exit of passengers from an aircraft through an airport departure gate in case there is a long delay in operating the flight after boarding.