Passenger thrown off Vistara plane after insisting on smoking mid-air

NEW DELHI: A Vistara airlines fight was delayed by more than three hours over twin reasons which included a passenger insisting on smoking onboard.

The incidents took place in the Amritsar-Delhi-Kolkata (UK 946 and UK707) flight on Friday morning. In the first case, a family requested to be offloaded in Delhi due to a personal emergency causing the plane to be delayed by nearly 1.5 hours.

Later, another Kolkata-bound passenger, who boarded the flight in Amritsar insisted on a quick smoke and got into an argument with the airline staff. The flight was then forced to turn back to Delhi, where the passenger was offloaded due to his unruly behaviour.

The airlines released a statement explaining the events.

"We confirm that a customer on our flight UK 946 operating Delhi -Amritsar asked to be offloaded with his family after pushback in Delhi due to a personal emergency, as a result of which the aircraft had to return to bay and undergo mandatory security rescreening, causing delay in departure. The same aircraft thereafter operated UK707 Amritsar - Delhi - Kolkata.

“After pushback from Delhi which was the intermediate stop enroute to Kolkata, we had an unruly customer situation who insisted on smoking on board. He was issued a warning letter by the captain and later offloaded when he denied to comply with air safety rules. Vistara regrets the delay, however, safety and security of customers are Vistara's foremost priority and it does not accept unruly behaviour of any kind," said Vistara.