Gatwick Airport: Air India passengers stranded on plane
 

BBC News - Gatwick Airport: Air India passengers stranded on plane
I guess there's a reason why the pax were not disembarked and cleared customs and immigration at LGW and then, if they wished, bussed to LHR?

Crikey surely common sense would be to put the passengers through LGW and bus them !:=

No sympathy for AI though..they used to divert to BHX who treatted passengers a bit better.

How many divs from LHR did LGW pick up today ?

Can't on the face of it see why getting off @ LGW to enter "Fortress UK " would be any different to LHR.
Surely not a simple case of AI not wanting to pick up the tab for the bus ? or paying one-off pax handling fee @ LGW ?. . . . then again :hmm:

Going to be some lawsuits after this one...


edit to add.. perhaps time for an EU ramp delay rule!

Gatwick Airport: Air India Gatwick "incident"
 

Now back at Heathrow i gather.

BBC News - Gatwick Airport: Air India passengers stranded on plane

Incredible.
What was stopping them from being disembarked and just bussed over to Heathrow? Could they not just have gone through imigration at LGW??

:ugh:

Its a lot more complicated than just arranging a bus (several busses). AI has no handling agent at LGW and I suspect there are issues about passenger records being sent from India to Heathrow. Getting it sorted would probably take longer then the delay in getting a crew - seems like the original crew were close to the limit on hours

topper3 , you obviously have no idea about Indian bureaucracy / decision making / buck passing etc ? I have had the dubious pleasure of working for a decidedly 2nd rate Middle East airline for 3 years ( only 2 more days thank God ) which is virtually run by them , and the locals have adopted their methods ..........mayhem. Hence , no surprise what happened in Gatwick today .
We should ask why AI were the only divertees having grief today - were they not Cat 3 Rated , or just flying on fumes thanks to poor planning / pressure from management ?
I can picture the aggro from the pax .........almost comical to contemplate.
Really made my ( 2nd last ) day !!

Shakes head in a very concerned manner muttering "O dear me, O dear me, O dear me" :ugh::{

Seems like they are serial offenders with the news that the same happened at BHX.

AI had the same problem at MAN many years ago and kept their pax on the aircraft for 8+ hours after a diversion from LHR . They couldn't make their minds up what to do, offload or fuel and go and took several hours to decide. They then demanded instant handling. Sorry chaps, you're in Britain now and you have to wait in a queue for handling in a sequence which is dependent on when you requested it. There were several aircraft in front of them.

Seem to remember that this was before the era of mobile phones etc but it did hit the press next day.

Not so; US Air and AA both had flights diverted to MAN which were fuel and go

Kotakota,

Before you speculate that the crew were flying on fumes due to poor planning or getthereitus, maybe the aircraft concerned had an MEL item that prevented it from being CAT3 capable:=Just a thought.

Question is

Would numerous passengers requesting medical treatment for potential "heart attacks" or other "alledged" medical conditions force all the passengers to be taken off ?

I wonder what would have happened had there been Olympic athletes or officials onboard?

You can't just organise the handling and transportation of passengers at the flick of a switch. As said earlier, if the airline don't have a handling contract with anyone then ringing around and finding someone able to handle the aircraft will take a while. If they do manage to find someone willing to do it, they'll be put to the back of the queue until they have spare bodies available, which in this day and age, isn't very often. Likewise, trying to organise enough coaches for 300+ people is hell, and if you add poor management from AI to it all it's a recipe for disaster.

How can a carrier have an alternate on ther flight plan without having a potential handling agent lined up there ?

You don't need coaches for 300 as quite a few said they were happy to make their own way from London Gatwick, not all would need to go to Hounslow. I seem to recall many airlines who have a contact at the alternate just in case of a div, the wheels click into motion.

Anyone else spot a very clear clue in the BBC story as to why THIS particular incident hit the international news?

Now, far be it from me to suggest that a journalist might use his contacts to publicise a story, but....

Yeah, it was badly handled by AI but I'm not sure the story merited the amount of coverage it's had worldwide on the BBC tonight/this morning!

Do what the Ryanair passengers did in Seville a couple of months back, when being held against their will in unacceptable circumstances; open the doors,blow the slides and leave.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a false imprisonment claim in there too, as well as whatever ppl succeed in claiming for the delay and inconvenience. Love to see Indian bureaucracy defend itself in a UK court!!

Re the clareview comment about passenger records being sent from India to Heathrow - there will no doubt be questions asked about why the UK citizens on board couldn't simply flash their passports at LGW and then get the train into London - at least one said to the BBC that they were happy to do this!

I think, after due consideration, I'd counsel against that.
Could be leaving oneself open to a charge of causing malicious damage; however, if steps are there, insisting upon walking off would seem reasonable.