August 8: Nearly a dozen passengers booked on Air-India's Flight 127 on the Mumbai-London-Chicago route and holding confirmed tickets were left behind as the entire flight was overbooked.A-I's counter staff were hard-pressed to pacify angry passengers. ``When I called one week ago to confirm my booking, I was told everything was okay,'' said Dr Lata Nagpal, who has appointments scheduled at her office in Chicago.Nagpal, who had booked a round-trip ticket in Chicago two months ago, said she and nearly a dozen other passengers who arrived at the airport for the 5.10 am flight today were put on standby. ``Our baggage was not checked in and we were waiting for two-and-a-half hours after the flight left, as there was no information from the airline,'' Nagpal added. Subsequently, A-I's officials offered to accommodate the passengers in either the Mumbai-London-New York flight leaving here on Saturday or the Mumbai-London-Chicago flight leaving here on Sunday morning. Even as Nagpal prepared herself to take the Sunday flight, A-I officials called her up at home in suburban Mumbai and offered to accommodate her on the Mumbai-Paris flight leaving here at 7.30 am tonight. From Paris, she has been booked on a United American flight to Chicago. Defending A-I's decision to overbook passengers, an airline spokesperson said: ``Sometimes there are 40 to 50 cancellations, and since airline seats are a perishable commodity, all airlines worldwide indulge in overbooking.''
