Fliers offloaded to lighten plane

New Delhi: Imagine the plight of passengers, seated inside a plane, waiting for final takeoff call, who instead hear a cabin announcement, asking for volunteers to deboard. Why? Because the aircraft is too heavy for lift off. This is precisely what happened at Amritsar on Sunday when passengers of a private airliner were seated inside an ATR and waiting to be flown to Delhi.
"First there was a delay in take off for some time. Then the cabin crew made an announcement, asking for five volunteers to get off the plane. The airline — Jet Airways —promised to give free hotel accommodation to these volunteers, alongwith passage to Delhi on Monday," said a passenger onboard the flight. Among the passengers were Congress MP and Board of Control for Cricket in India member Rajeev Shukla.
Finally, three passengers volunteered and the airline also offloaded some luggage from the aircraft. A Jet Airways spokesperson said: "The captain wanted the load to be reduced as he wanted to carry more fuel to Delhi because of congestion there and hovering could take a while. Such decisions are taken on basis of weight that can be safely flown to a destination, alongwith fuel."
A senior DGCA official said, a pilot is well within his right to offload passengers if need be for operational reasons. "...However, such decisions are usually taken by airlines' commercial and operational departments before hand. So passengers are told at check-in counters as to what they will not be able to take on the flight. Instances of such announcements being made in cabin for seated passengers are not common," the official said.
12/08/08 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Aug 2008, Jet Airways Aug 2008