Bad weather, pilot duty rules ground Air India London-Delhi passengers

An eight hours London Delhi journey extended to 18 hours for Air India passengers on Sunday due to a weather diversion and crew duty time restrictions.

An Air India Boeing 787 ( flight number AI 112) aircraft from London was forced to divert to Jaipur early on Sunday because of adverse weather. The aircraft landed at Jaipur around 4 a.m

But passengers' ordeal began as pilot and crew duty time rules kicked in. While Air India said it arranged separate set of crew to bring the passengers to Delhi, many of them took to social media complaining lack of on-ground assistance. According to media reports some passengers were transported to Delhi by road.

“The crew were constrained by the FDTL (Flight Duty Time Limitations) regulations to operate a flight to Delhi soon after the diversion to Jaipur. A fresh set of crew were subsequently arranged to fly the guests to Delhi to fly the guests to Delhi at the earliest possible opportunity. However, the actions taken in this case are purely in the interest of the safety of our guests and crew,” said an Air India spokesperson. 

The aircraft eventually took off from Jaipur at 2.30 pm and landed in Delhi around 3 p.m on Sunday. Pilot and cabin crew duty hours are governed by norms laid down by the civil aviation regulator. These are meant  to prevent and mitigate fatigue in a flight crew. 

The regulations specify duty hours for pilots and crew for domestic and international operations. For pilots for instance it lays down maximum actual flying time, duty time and number of landings permitted. These vary depending upon number of pilots in the cockpit.