Flight To Patna Lands In Varanasi. Passengers Were Then Asked To Take Bus

New Delhi: Around 20 passengers travelling in a Spicejet flight to Patna from Delhi were allegedly asked to take a bus after the plane had to make a landing in Varanasi last night, reported news agency ANI. Spicejet said that the flight had to be diverted to Varanasi due to bad weather in Patna.

Several passengers took to twitter to complain against the incident and many even said that they were left stranded without any food. 
 

Very well behaviour by #Spicejet with the passenger no.sg8084 going from Delhi to Patna. Not provided food even to children and week senior citizens. Even dropped in banaras instead of Patna. #spicejet#PMOIndia#bihargovt#YogiAdityanath#sushmaswaraj#civilaviationindia

— Reetesh (@Reetesh83221154) May 31, 2018

The matter reached Civil Aviation Minister Jayant Sinha after some passengers tagged him in their tweets. Following this, the minister asked Spicejet to followup on the complaints.
 

@flyspicejet please follow up https://t.co/YrNjNU0TaY

— Jayant Sinha (@jayantsinha) May 31, 2018

Later in statement, Spicejet said, every possible effort was made to fly the passengers to Patna last night but uncertain weather, objections by a few passengers twice --- first while flying to Patna directly and while flying via Delhi --- and exceedance of flight duty timings of the crew, resulted in the delay.

The low cost airline added that "around 20 passengers refused to board the aircraft to Delhi despite being assured that the same plane would be flying to Patna and the passengers would not be required to deplane at Delhi. With the weather still uncertain in Patna, a decision to operate directly to Patna could have resulted in the flight again coming back to Varanasi in case of bad weather in Patna and the crew exceeding their FDTL (maximum work hours)".

Stranded passengers were flown to Patna today morning.

(with ANI inputs)