Clogged toilets ground Air India’s Australia-Delhi flight

NEW DELHI: A Sydney-Melbourne-Delhi Air India flight (AI 301) had to be grounded in Melbourne on Friday as the toilets on board got clogged by the time it landed there.

"The maintenance unit worked on the problem in Melbourne. By the time the toilets were cleared, the crew hit the flying duty limit and they could not have operated the long oceanic flight to Delhi," an AI official said.

The 148 passengers had to be sent to Delhi on other airlines, an airline spokesman said. Flying to Delhi with unserviceable toilets when 148 passengers—apart from crew—on board who would be served a full meal, snacks and unlimited drinks was clearly not an option.

This is at least the third time this year that an AI long-haul flight has been disrupted due to clogged loos, raising question marks on the airline's maintenance unit. Earlier this year, an AI flight took off for Frankfurt from Delhi. Three hours later, it was back at the IGI Airport as the toilets were clogged.

Another aircraft flying from New York to Delhi also suffered the same fate. The pilots first wanted to divert to London but Heathrow was closed for the night. Then somehow one toilet became serviceable and passengers decided to fly to Delhi.

"These repeat instances don't show AI's maintenance in good light. Grounding an aircraft at foreign airports and sending stranded passengers to hotels or putting them on other flights costs a lot of money, apart from hurting our reputation," a senior pilot said.

The airline recently issued a show-cause notice to the head of its maintenance engineering unit for repeated snags. But with AI soon going to be headless, accountability seems to have taken a hit.

- Source:  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com