A JetLite flight was delayed by about one-and-a-half hours today after its communication system developed a "technical" glitch just before its departure for Mumbai from the city.
The JetLite flight S2 4166, scheduled to depart from the Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport at 1720 hours here, left for Mumbai only at around 1845 after the airline engineers fixed the problem, a Nagpur airport official said.
However, the number of passengers on-board the aircraft, a Boeing 737, could not be known.
JetLite is a subsidiary of Jet Airways.
Jet Airways confirmed the delay, saying it happened due to a "technical" reason.
"The Boeing 737 aircraft system malfunctioned before it was to depart for Mumbai, forcing the airline to ground the flight. Subsequently, engineers were called in to fix the issue and make the aircraft airworthy," the official said.
The Naresh Goyal-promoted private carrier Jet Airways has been facing frequent delays in its flight operations for quite some time now.
A three-week-long protest over non-payment of salary hike dues by a group of the airline's pilots last month severely affected its punctuality.
Later, the airline claimed of having the issue resolved.
It performed poorly in terms of punctuality with nearly one-thirds of its flights failing to arrive or depart on time from four metro airports -- Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad -- in September.
The airline's OTP (on time performance) was the worst from Mumbai (56.9 per cent) and Delhi (64.1 per cent), which account for most of its flights.
Significantly, yesterday, Bollywood actress Sunny Leone and her husband, Daniel Weber, took to Twitter to complain about delays experienced on four Jet Airways flights this week.
"Seriously, its crazy the amount of delays @jetairways is having everyday. Was on a plane all week and usually only with Jet (Airways) but everyday was delayed at least by 1 hour. Ruined my week of sleep (sic)! Something needs to be done," Leone wrote in a tweet.
Weber posted that he received a call from the airline's customer care who sought to blame the airport for the delays.
"Call from @jetairways this morning to me after a complaint about 4 flight delays this week -- sir, it is the airports fault , not the airlines, dont be mad at us !... Good response @jetairways," Weber wrote.
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