Journalism of Courage
Vistara’s Pune-Singapore flight (UK111) was delayed by seven hours on Friday morning, inconveniencing passengers who took to social media to vent their anger. The flyers claimed that they were made to sit in the aircraft for two hours, only to be later told that the pilot was not available.
The flight, which had a scheduled departure from Pune airport at 2.10 am, eventually took off at 9.05 am and is expected to reach Singapore at 4.42 pm.
Chetan Chavan, a business executive, took to X (formerly Twitter) to express his displeasure with the delay. “Today’s flight UK111 from Pune to Singapore has not taken off for more than 6 hours as pilots didn’t turn up,” Chavan posted at 8 am. “After sitting in plane for two hours, we were deplaned. Air Vistara, who is responsible for miss management? What impression foreign nationals (sic) on board will get….How did your team board flight and kept passengers in for two hours when you knew that there were no pilots available,” wondered Chavan.
The airline, while responding to the comments made by passengers on social media, said that the flight got delayed due to “operational reasons”. While apologising to its passengers, it said that the airport team offered refreshments to the passengers.
When Akhil Agarwal, a passenger, wondered if the airline would compensate the passengers for the seven-hour delay, the airline responded that there wouldn’t be any compensation.
The Vistara flight, which is one of the three international flights from Pune, was launched in December 2022 at a frequency of four days a week. It became a six-day-a-week operation in December 2023. The flight operates from Monday to Friday and on Sunday.
