NE BUSINESS BUREAU
NEW DELHI, JAN 20
After keeping several hundred passengers on tenterhooks for more than a day, the flight dilemma between India and the United States is being solved and flight operations are being resumed.
Flights operated by Air India from India to different destinations in the US, including those from Hyderabad via Delhi, were cancelled or rescheduled on Wednesday due to the rollout of 5G services in the US, which were reported to cause disruptions in flight operations. The issue cropped up after US aviation regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration, warned that 5G interference could lead to problems with aircraft systems, especially those of the Boeing while landing.
On Thursday however, according to Air India’s official spokesperson, Boeing has cleared Air India to operate to the USA on the B777 aircraft.
“Accordingly, the first flight has left this morning to the JFK Airport, New York. The other flights leaving in the day are to Chicago and SFO (San Francisco),” the spokesperson told Telangana Today, adding that arrangements to carry stranded passengers too were being worked out.
On Wednesday, several irate passengers, who had reached the Hyderabad International Airport to proceed to Delhi and from there to Chicago, took to social media to complain that they were not informed well in advance and that their entire schedules were affected due to this.
Air India officials said they had issued an alert on Tuesday, informing passengers that due to deployment of 5G communications in USA, their operations to the USA from India ‘stand curtailed/revised with change in aircraft type from January 19.
The cancellation and rescheduling led to widespread anger, with many passengers saying they were stranded in airports, including at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport here. With rescheduling happening, many were also seen raising questions to Air India on Twitter, asking what would happen to the RT-PCR reports that were time-bound and whether the airlines would reimburse the costs, including of that hotel stays for those who had no other option. All these issues were now being sorted out, officials said.
