The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has directed a probe after a flight bound for Singapore took off hours before schedule, leaving behind 35 passengers at the Amritsar airport.
The Scoot Airline flight, a low-cost subsidiary wholly owned by Singapore Airlines, was scheduled to depart at 7:55 PM on 18th January as reported by NDTV.com. The airline, however, rescheduled it to 3 PM, leading to a furor at the airport.
Angry passengers, who were left behind, staged protests at Amritsar airport and registered their complaint with the airport authorities. The DCGA has sought a statement from both Scoot Airline and the Amritsar Airport authorities.
The airline has said that the change in schedule was communicated early on via email. However, as per an airport official, the change in flight timings wasn’t informed by the travel agent who had originally booked the tickets for the group comprising over 30 passengers. This led to the plane taking off with the remaining passengers, who had reached the airport on time.
Incidents similar to this have occurred recently like in Bengaluru, where a Go First flight bound for Delhi had taken off, leaving behind 55 passengers, who were in the shuttle bus, on their way to the plane. The passengers were reportedly accommodated on another flight four hours later.
Following the incident, DGCA has sought a detailed report from the domestic budget airline post this incident. Many angry Twitter users had tagged the Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, requesting him to look into the incident.