I’ve been on the road a lot last month, sometimes with last-minute plans. With traffic going through the roof in the second half of November 2023 and the weather turning colder in North India, delays have happened. However, I saw my first big delay of the season last night. But this is not about the delay but how the airline handled it.

I was booked to fly Air India Express from Bengaluru to Delhi last evening on I5 1532, which usually departs at 6:10 PM and arrives in Delhi at 9:05 PM. It’s perfect to hit the sack by 10:30 PM after no sleep overnight. But it wasn’t meant to be.

While I wasn’t looking, it seems some congestion built up at Delhi Airport, which caused a lot of flights to be delayed. In the Air Traffic Flow Management paradigm, which Air Traffic Control has adopted in India for many years now, aircraft at departing airports are supposed to take permission/slot/clearance from arriving airports to ensure that they are not circling in the air, burning fuel (unless for some sudden weather or other situation which might happen after the plane is already airborne).

So that meant that Delhi Airport had to clear our departure from Bengaluru (apart from Bengaluru itself). And Delhi told all the evening flights from Bengaluru to hold at Bengaluru itself rather than take off. All airlines were affected, not just AIX.

Here is IndiGo…

Air India…

Vistara…

and Air India Express.

We were all seated in the plane, and then came the announcement from the Captain, who told us that due to ATC Congestion at Delhi, instead of departing at 18:10, we would depart at 18:50 hours. At about 19:00 hours, when we had still not moved, he came back and updated on the PA system that they still did not have an OK from Delhi to depart and that the new departure time would be 19:45 hours. All this while, we were still on the plane, and the doors were still open.

The cabin crew was nice enough to come around repeatedly, offering everyone water. Seated in the first row, I saw more water bottles being handed over to the cabin crew over and over by the ground staff.

However, after the second announcement of a delay, I saw the cabin crew pull out the carts, and they asked passengers if they wanted to have some noodles. The first few hesitated, wondering if the airline wanted to make a buck while still on the ground. But that was not the case; the airline was offering them free of charge.

The crew went around and emptied three carts of noodles in the cabin, and not just that, there were people who declined but later accepted their offer and were handed out noodles.

Now, I’m not sure how other airlines would have handled it, but having buy-on-board catering helped in this case. Noodles are the easiest sold items on all Indian no-frill carriers, so airlines usually carry enough, hoping to sell them on at least one flight of the four or five rotations the aircraft makes daily when flying domestically.

But I’ve seen far too many times that Indian airlines do not respond to their customers in these cases and would blame regulatory reasons for not “serving” the passengers anything but water. Social media is littered with posts every day about such stuff.

Was it necessary? Not in my view. As per the Civil Aviation Requirements, Section 3 – Air Transport Series M Part IV, also known as the Passenger Charter, the airlines shall provide free meals and refreshments when the passenger has checked in on time and if the airline expects a delay beyond 3 hours or more in case of flights having a block time of more than 2 ½ hrs and up to 5 hours.

My flight was at 2:55 hours, so the airline was supposed to offer these if my flight was delayed over 3 hours (take off at 9 pm or later). However, at no point in time did this happen, and the airline did not wait for the announcement for the three-hour mark. They offered at the one-hour mark itself.