Air India plane called back after passenger boards wrong flight

NEW DELHI: An Air India passenger, who had bought a Delhi-Muscat ticket, on Friday boarded a Mumbai bound flight mistakenly owing to a manual check of tickets.

On hearing the announcement in the flight, the passenger alerted the crew members. Following this, the aircraft was soon called back from the runway to the taxiway. He was then deboarded.

According to airline sources, the passenger had proceeded to the gates to catch his flight. The boarding card scanner, however, was out of order and the AI officials had to do the manual checking of boarding passes of all the passengers.

Mistakenly, the man boarded a Mumbai-bound AI flight (AI 024), instead of the Muscat-bound flight (AI-973).

An AI official confirmed the incident and had said that the confusion occurred since the flight timing difference for the Mumbai and Muscat flights was only 15-20 minutes. Also, the boarding pass scanner was not working and two officials, who were on duty, has been suspended with immediate effect.

(With ANI inputs)