PUNE: Around 30 flyers booked on an Alliance Air flight to Hyderabad were left stranded at the city airport on Friday evening after the airline suddenly cancelled it and allegedly refused to provide them with any accommodation, while the ground crew made a disappearing act.
The flight (9I-868) was scheduled to take off from Pune at 9.30pm on Friday. Daggula Lakshman Reddy, travelling to home in Hyderabad with his seven family members, said they had come to Pune via road just to take the flight.
“We were on a road trip and had been to Mumbai, Lonavla and Lavasa. On Friday, we came to Pune to catch the flight home. There were quite a few like us who didn’t have a place to stay in the city. At first, the airline’s ground crew said the flight had been delayed and would take off at 10.25pm. But that didn’t happen,” Reddy said.
He said after waiting for a little over five hours, they were told that the flight had been cancelled because of technical reasons.
“They gave this information to flyers around 12midnight. The flyers got frustrated and started arguing with the airline staffers. The ground crew said it was not possible to arrange an alternative flight at present and it could be done only around 9.30pm on Saturday,” he said.
Soon, the flyers from Pune left the airport. “But around 30 of us had nowhere to go because we don’t have homes here. We repeatedly requested the airline staffers to provide us with accommodation, but they kept giving excuses. The crew suddenly disappeared around 1.30am, deserting us at the airport,” Reddy said.
TOI sent a detailed e-mail and a tweet to the corporate communications team of Alliance Air on the issue. A response was awaited till going to press.
Reddy said, “The airline assured that a refund for the tickets would be given but we don’t know when. We had spent around Rs37,000 for the seven air tickets.” The disgruntled Reddy family finally started their journey back to Hyderabad in two cabs around 3.30am on Saturday.
