This passenger had to go to Muscat, but almost reached Mumbai

In a bizarre incident, a passenger who bought tickets from Air India (AI) for Muscat, boarded a Mumbai-bound AI flight instead and almost missed his Muscat flight due to a huge confusion between AI officials.

According to airline sources, the passenger had purchased an AI ticket from New Delhi to Muscat. He then proceeded to the gates to catch his flight. However, the boarding card scanner was out of order and the AI officials had to do the manual checking of boarding passes of all the passengers.

When he boarded the flight, little did he knew that he was in a Mumbai-bound AI flight (AI 024), instead of the Muscat-bound flight (AI-973). The passenger, on hearing the announcement in the plane, that he was on the Mumbai flight, immediately alerted the crew members. The flight was moving towards the runway and it was about to take off when it was called back by the AI officials.

The passenger then boarded the Muscat-bound flight, after alighting from the Mumbai flight.

An AI official has confirmed the incident to ANI and had said that the confusion occurred since the flight timing difference for the Mumbai and Muscat flights was only 15-20 minutes. Also, the boarding pass scanner was not working and two officials, who were on duty, has been suspended with immediate effect.