IndiGo overbooking glitch causes flight delay at Mumbai airport

The incident took place on board an IndiGo Airlines plane. The aircraft was ready for takeoff and was already taxiing on the airport runway when the crew discovered something was amiss. There were too many passengers on the plane.

The IndiGo Airlines plane was supposed to fly from Mumbai Airport to Varanasi in India. Still, just before takeoff, the onboard crew discovered a passenger standing at the back of the plane. The pilot was immediately notified and decided to turn the aircraft back towards the airport terminal.

- The plane returned to the gate, and the passenger was asked to disembark. Then the airline checked all passengers' cabin luggage on board before proceeding with takeoff, which occurred after at least a one-hour delay - said a passenger of the aircraft, Akhilesh Chaubey, as quoted by the Hindustan Times portal.

The cause of the situation was overbooking, which is a situation where there are more passengers than available seats on the plane. Travelers without a seat are usually rebooked onto another flight. This time, however, there was an error in the reservation system.

- There was an error during the boarding process on flight 6E 6543 from Mumbai to Varanasi, resulting in a standby passenger being assigned a seat reserved for a confirmed passenger. The error was noticed before the plane took off, and the standby traveler was removed from the flight. This caused a slight delay. IndiGo will take all necessary steps to reinforce its operational processes and regrets the inconvenience caused to customers – explained the spokesperson for IndiGo Airlines.

It turned out that the extra passenger was an IndiGo Airlines employee who was supposed to take the flight as part of recreational staff travel. The crew member checked in after receiving information that there was an available seat on that flight.