Go First flight leaves 55 passengers behind; DGCA seeks report

In a rather bizarre incident, a Go First flight en route from Bengaluru to Delhi reportedly left as many as 55 passengers on the tarmac while they were waiting to board the bus in the wee hours of Monday. On Tuesday, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) sought a report from the airline regarding this.

The incident took place on Flight G8 116, which was scheduled to go from Bengaluru to Delhi at 6:30 am on Monday. Several disgruntled passengers took to Twitter slamming the airline for the unruly behaviour. Satish Kumar, one of the impacted travellers tweeted, "Flight G8 116 (BLR - DEL) flew leaving passengers on ground! More than 50 passengers on 1 bus was left on ground & flight took off with just passengers of 1 bus on boarded. Is @GoFirstairways@JM_Scindia @PMOIndia operating in sleep? No Basic checks."

Shreya Sinha, another impacted flyer tweeted, "Most horrifying experience with @GoFirstairways 5:35 am Boarded the bus for aircraft 6:30 am Still in bus stuffed with over 50 passengers, driver stopped the bus after being forced. Flight G8 116 takes off, leaving 50+ passengers. Heights of negligence! @DGCAIndia."

The airline, after realising its mistake, arranged for another flight for the impacted passengers four hours later. According to reports, 53 out of 55 passengers were shifted to the second flight, whereas the airline paid the refunds as asked by the remaining two passengers. 

Taking cognizance of the incident, the aviation watchdog has sent a notice and sought a response from the airline, according to the news agency PTI. It quoted a senior DGCA official as saying, "'appropriate action' will be taken" regarding the issue.

Over the past couple of months, domestic airlines are under the aviation regulator's radar owing to misconduct and negligence in operations. This is the third time in the past two weeks that the aviation regulator has sent notice to an Indian airline over negligence.

The DGCA on Monday sent the second show-cause notice to Tata-owned Air India for its "lackadaisical" and "delayed" response to two unruly passenger incidents that occurred on its Paris-Delhi flight in December.

The notice said, "Two incidents of passenger misbehavior occurring on Air India flight AI-142 on November 6, 2022, from Paris to New Delhi came to the notice of DGCA. One passenger was caught smoking in the lavatory, was drunk, and not listening to the crew. Another passenger allegedly relieved himself on a vacant seat and blanket of a fellow female passenger when she went to the lavatory."

Last week, the DGCA sent a notice to Air India, while slamming the airline for its "unprofessional" conduct in dealing with a female passenger, who was allegedly urinated upon by a co-passenger on a New York-Delhi flight on November 26, 2022. "The conduct of the airline appears to be unprofessional, and has led to systemic failure," the aviation regulator said, while giving the airline two weeks time to submit its reply based on which further action will be taken.

Last year, the DGCA sought a report from SpiceJet for negligence in flight operations. In light of repeated tech snags, the regulator on July 27 asked the airline to operate at a 50% capacity for eight weeks and later extended the curbs till October 29 last year. The aviation watchdog, however, lifted the curbs on SpiceJet on October 31.