Crammed ‘Air India’ flight is fake news, says government

A video doing the rounds on social media shows angry passengers complaining about the lack of social distancing on their flight.

According to various Twitter commentators, the flight was operated by Air India, though that was denied by the government today.

‘Where are the empty seats?’

As well as the condition of the plane they were travelling on, the passengers in the video seem especially upset that alternate seats weren’t kept empty, as they had been led to believe would happen.

There were a few heated exchanges with the crew and you can watch the video here:

In one scene, a male passenger says:

‘You have charged us for the price of three seats per person for one way flight. You think we are stupid? The government wants revenue, money and all sorts of things from overseas. All over the world, travels have been restricted to one seat (alternate seats), but you guys are saying that if corona exists, then it exists outside, not inside (the aircraft). If something happens to me in future, I am going to sue you guys.’

According to the dialogue in the video – spoken mostly in Urdu – the flight seems to have been to, or from, Canada. Passengers claim they were charged 3,000 dollars for the one-way journey.

‘You are charging money for this, you are not doing charity. You are charging us three times the fares. For a ticket costing $1,400, $1,600 or even $,1800, you are charging us $3,000 for a one-way flight….

The conversation then turns to the condition of the aircraft, which one female passenger describes as a ‘sh@tty plane, sh@tty plane’. Another man asks:

‘Tell me how many of your TV screens are even working? How many of your seats are in proper condition?’

There are numerous complaints about a lack of free seats in the cabin, with passengers demanding more space.

Government denies this is Air India

Via its PIB Fact Check account on Twitter, the Indian government today denied Air India carried out this flight.

The tweet states the flight was operated by an airline from a ‘neighbouring country’, which inevitably lead to speculation this was a PIA flight:

To us, this doesn’t look like an Air India flight, but what do you make of the video?