I just don’t understand why Air India didn’t just charter a bus for these people – their flight into London Heathrow was diverted to Gatwick, a little over an hour away. There are regular express buses (called coaches in the UK) between the two airports and there’s even regular scheduled bus services that are really cheap (the fare is about 25GBP).
Instead, they were forced to sit on the plane for up to 9 hours while Air India waited for a rested crew to show up to fly the plane from Gatwick to Heathrow. If they’d been put on a bus, they’d have been at Heathrow about 7 hours earlier, including customs.
Police were called to keep calm among passengers on a plane at Gatwick, who were kept on board for an entire day after their plane was diverted from Heathrow airport because of fog.
The Air India flight from Mumbai was originally due to land at Heathrow at 7.30am, but was diverted to Gatwick because of dense early morning fog.
The passengers were then forced to sit on the plane on the Gatwick runway for nine hours – just an hour’s drive by coach from Heathrow – watching brilliant sunshine and clear blue skies out the windows.
A BBC World Service reporter on board, Rahul Joglekar, said the mood became heated as the crew failed to keep the passengers, who included small children and a heavily pregnant woman, informed about what was happening, and when if ever they would set foot on English soil. “We continue to be stranded here without any information from the crew,” he told the BBC .
via Police called to calm diverted passengers stranded on plane | World news | The Guardian.
