Seven Int'l Flights Grounded in One Day as Snags Haunt AI

Disruptions come as probe is on into Ahmedabad crash

- AGENCIES

Troubles continued at Air India, which is facing the biggest crisis since Tata group bought the airline three-and-a-half years back, with as many as seven international flights being cancelled on Tuesday for varied reasons, and a glitch forcing fliers on San Francisco-Mumbai flight to deplane during a stopover.

While Air India cancelled six international flights due to aviation regulator DGCA subjecting its Dreamliner fleet to enhanced checks, the Ahmedabad-London Gatwick one was cancelled due to unavailability of aircraft, the airline said.

The Delhi-Paris flight was cancelled after some problems were detected during pre-flight checks. The other flights cancelled during the day included Bengaluru-London, London-Amritsar, Delhi-Vienna, Delhi-Dubai and Mumbai-San Francisco.

Separately, Air India terminated its San Francisco-Mumbai flight at its scheduled stopover at Kolkata early on Tuesday morning after one of its engines developed a technical snag. The disruptions came as investigators probed what caused a London-bound Air India flight to crash in Ahmedabad shortly after take-off on June 12, killing more than 270 people on-board and on the ground. The incident dealt a severe blow to the airline and its owner Tata, which prides itself in producing luxury cars to salt to software and assembling iPhones.