NEW DELHI: The menace of hoax threat messages playing havoc with flight schedules and passengers continues unabated. On Tuesday, at least seven flights — including an Air India Delhi-Chicago flight that had to be diverted to a nondescript Canadian town of Iqaluit and IndiGo’s Dammam-Lucknow to Jaipur — saw such threats after three on Monday when AI’s Mumbai-New York nonstop was diverted to Delhi for this reason.
Checks revealed the four Tuesday threats — including for AI 127 Delhi-Chicago diverted flight; IndiGo’s 6E 98 Dammam-Lucknow diverted; Air India Express Jaipur-Ayodhya;
SpiceJet
’s SG 116 Darbhanga-Mumbai and
Akasa
’s QP 1373 Bagdogra-Bengaluru — were hoax. Threats for some of these flights were posted on X (former Twitter) from a handle — @schizobomber777 — that has been suspended now.
As per protocol, after getting any threat aircraft — baggage and passengers — are thoroughly checked before being are released for next flight or continuing the journey. But on long hauls like AI’s affected nonstops of last two days, this means the same crew can’t operate the flight as they will breach their maximum duty time limitations and a fresh set of crew has to be arranged. Doing so in a remote Canadian town takes time. Providing for well over 300 passengers at a small airport that many flyers can’t even exit for Hotels till alternate arrangements are made due to lack of visas is also an uphill task for any airline.
Airlines are urging Govt to crack down on this menace t
