Last week, a social media video showed passengers wearing woollens descending an Air India plane’s slippery staircase into the freezing air of the Canadian city of Iqaluit.
Early on October 15, the Boeing 777 carrying 211 passengers was rerouted from Mumbai to Chicago because of a bomb threat.
With 200 passengers, we have been stranded at the airport since 5 a.m. We don’t know what’s going on or what we should do next. Passenger Harit Sachdeva wrote on social media, “We are totally stranded.” He gave credit to this.
He accused Air India of not doing enough to alert the passengers and commended the “kind airport staff.”
The annoyance and worry of travelers who were sent to an unidentified, far-off location were encapsulated in Mr. Sachdeva’s message. A Canadian Air Force aircraft put an end to their experience by transporting the stranded passengers to Chicago a few hours later. Air India acknowledged that a “security threat posted online” was the reason for the flight’s diversion to Iqaluit.
Similar to numerous other similar hoaxes that have targeted Indian airlines this year, the warning was untrue. At least 90 threats were made just last week, which led to delays, cancellations, and diversions. In a single day in June, 41 airports received bogus bomb threats via email, which led to increased security.
