Five passengers were not allowed to get on a Port Blair-bound Air India flight at Calcutta airport on Monday despite all of them holding boarding passes.

The harassed fliers alleged that the airline didn’t offer them any explanation for preventing them from boarding the plane.

Air India officials later said the flight was overbooked.

Sunil Nagpal, 54, a cardiac patient, friend T.K. Goswami, 60, and his wife Anita, in her 50s — all from Delhi — were stopped at the aircraft ladder.

Nagpal’s wife and two children had entered the plane by then.

The incident spoiled the Nagpals’ wedding anniversary, which they had planned to celebrate in Port Blair.

The three filed an FIR against Air India with the airport police station. They were later put on another airline’s flight.

“We were the first to collect the boarding pass,” said Nagpal over phone from Port Blair. “My wife, son and daughter had entered the aircraft when me, my friend and his wife were stopped.”

When Nagpal protested and asked Air India personnel the the reason for stopping them, he allegedly received vague replies.

“I then requested them to either allow me in or offload my wife and children, too, so that they are not alone in Port Blair. But they didn’t pay heed to my pleas,” he said.

“They didn’t even allow me to take my medicines, which were in my wife’s hand baggage,” Nagpal alleged.

The flight left with 154 passengers at 5.30am. Nagpal and the other couple were “accommodated” on a JetLite flight one-and-a-half hours later. Two others who had been prevented from boarding the Air India flight were put on the same plane. They reached Port Blair around noon, though that was not the end of their woes.

At Calcutta airport, the offloaded passengers were told by Air India officials that their luggage was “on hold” at Port Blair airport. But on reaching, Goswami found one piece of luggage missing.

“None of the airline officials told us what happened to our luggage,” alleged Goswami.

He threatened to sue the airline after returning from their trip.

Air India, however, claimed the passengers were not inconvenienced.

“We served them refreshments at the airport and accommodated them on a JetLite aircraft,”an official said.