Air India issues alert for flyers over delays in flights

New Delhi, Nov 5 (IANS) Air India on Wednesday alerted its passengers that the departure of some of the airline’s flights will be delayed due to "a third-party connectivity network issue that had impacted check-in systems at some airports".

The Tata Group airline said the system has now "been restored". However, some of the Air India flights may continue to be delayed for some time as the situation normalises progressively, according to a statement.

"Passengers flying with us today may check their flight status on https://airindia.com/in/en/manage/flight-status.html before heading to the airport and allow extra time for their journey," the Air India statement said.

Meanwhile, Air India had said on Tuesday that it was operating a relief flight to ferry the passengers of the San Francisco-Delhi flight, which was diverted to Mongolia due to a suspected technical issue.

Air India flight AI174, operating from San Francisco to Delhi via Kolkata on November 2, made a precautionary landing at Ulaanbaatar after the flight crew suspected a technical issue en route.

The airline further said that along with local authorities and the Indian Embassy in Mongolia, it has been looking after the passengers and crew, including providing them with hotel accommodation.

"Guests have been kept informed about the arrangements being made to fly them to Delhi. At Air India, the safety and wellbeing of our passengers and crew remain top priority," an Air India spokesperson said.

The airline had said in an earlier statement that the aircraft landed safely at Ulaanbaatar and was undergoing the necessary checks.

In the meantime, Air India has been granted a temporary extension of flight duty time for two-pilot Boeing 787 Dreamliner planes flying on European routes, which have become longer due to the closure of Pakistani airspace, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said last week.

The extension was based on specific operational reasons linked to planes on European routes having to undertake longer flight paths following the shutdown of Pakistan’s airspace, according to the civil aviation regulator.

For two-pilot Boeing 787 operations, the Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) has been extended to 10 hours and 30 minutes from 10 hours, and the Flight Duty Period (FDP) increased to 14 hours from 13.

--IANS

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