Indian passengers, stranded at Kuwait airport for nearly 20 hours, depart for Manchester

PTI, Dec 2, 2024, 3:56 PM IST

Kuwait City: Several Indian passengers of a Manchester-bound Gulf Air flight were stranded at the Kuwait airport for nearly 20 hours and flown out of the city to their destination on Monday morning.

The Gulf Air flight from Bahrain to Manchester was diverted to Kuwait due to a technical glitch.

Gulf Air GF5 took off from Bahrain at 2.05 am local time on December 1 but a snag forced the plane to land in Kuwait at 4:01 am, as per reports.

With several passengers complaining that they had been stranded at the airport for many hours, the Indian embassy in Kuwait took up the matter with Gulf Air, according to social media posts.

In a series of posts on X, the embassy said its team reached the airport to assist the passengers and coordinate with the airline. Passengers were accommodated in two airport lounges.

Food and water were made available for the stranded passengers at the lounges, as per the embassy.

“Gulf Air flight to Manchester finally departed at 0434 hours today carrying stranded Indian passengers among others. The embassy team was on the ground till the flight departed,” the embassy said in a post.

A stranded passenger, on Sunday, took to X, alleging that Indian passengers were left without help.

Arzoo Singh, a passenger, told NDTV that they asked for lounge access at least, but the airport authorities did not get back.

“They said ‘if you’re entitled passport holders, and Indians and Pakistanis are not entitled passport holders’, they literally told us if you’re entitled for a transit visa, only then we can put you in a hotel outside,” she said.

“We asked them what about us, people who are not ‘entitled’ as you say? They said we will get back to you. We ran behind them for nearly two hours, only after that we got lounge access. We asked for blankets, we asked for food. They didn’t give. No one even gave us water for the first four hours,” she added.

She said there were some 60 passengers, but there was no confirmation on the number from the airline.