Indian airline forgets 55 passengers as plane takes off

Go First Airways says sorry on Twitter after leaving busload of people at Bengaluru airport

A Go First Airways flight took off from Bengaluru without 55 passengers. Photo: Go First Airways

An Indian airline forgot to board a busload of passengers as a plane took off and left them behind.

The Go First Airways flight from Bengaluru to Delhi departed at 6.30am on Monday without 55 people who were expecting to travel.

They were all left sitting on one of four buses used to take passengers to the plane at Kempegowda International Airport.

The Indian civil aviation authority has requested a report from the airline in the latest in a series of controversial incidents involving India's aviation industry.

“[We have] sought a report from GoFirst after the airline's flight from Bengaluru forgot to board over 50 pax at Bangalore airport,” the regulator said.

It said the passengers were moved to another airline and two asked for a refund, which was paid.

Some of the passengers criticised the airline on social media, claiming they had boarding passes and their bags were checked in.

They said they were made to wait four hours for their replacement flight.

Passenger Shreya Sinha said the experience was “most horrifying” as she was kept waiting on the crowded bus.

She called it the “heights of negligence” in a Twitter post.

Satish Kumar, another passenger, questioned the airline's competence.

Go First Airways responded to the tweets by saying it was “sorry for the inconvenience caused”, but did not release a statement.

The incident comes days after details emerged of two separate cases of male passengers allegedly urinating on women in the business class sections of Air India flights.

One passenger was arrested after urinating on a woman, 70, on a flight from New York to Delhi in November.

He was also sacked from his job as vice president in the Bengaluru office of Wells Fargo, an American multinational financial company.

A second incident on a Paris to Delhi flight on December 6 saw the passenger taken into custody on arrival in the Indian capital.

He was later released by federal police after submitting a written apology and reaching an understanding with the victim.