The new year has not unfolded well for the travellers on the Mumbai Diu air route as the only Alliance Air flight connecting both the places has been cancelled 12 times in the last fifteen days. The route saw flight cancellation for the last four consecutive days leaving passengers in fury against the airline.

Mumbai has a daily air connectivity with the union territory of Diu through a one-hour flight operated by Alliance Air. However, the flight has been in talks for all the wrong reasons since the start of this year. A total of 12 to and fro flights on the route have been cancelled in the last 15 days according to the flight status data.

Flight 9I 623 which departs at 1.55pm and 3.05pm on every alternate days has been cancelled for the last four consecutive days. On Sunday, the passengers boarding the flight were earlier informed that the flight has been delayed but were ultimately told that the flight has been cancelled and will not take off. The same series of events repeated everyday till Wednesday.

Similarly, Flight 9I 624 connecting Diu to Mumbai was cancelled for all four days since the flight never took off from Mumbai to reach the union territory. Notably, the to and fro flights on the route were also cancelled on January 1 and January 4, summing up the total number of cancelled flights on this route to 12 in a span of 15 days.

Since the Alliance Air flight is the only flight connecting Mumbai and Diu, passengers are left with no other option to reach their destination even after paying a hefty airfare. The current airfare on the route is around Rs4,712 for a short aerial distance of only 272km.

Passengers who were stranded due to these frequent flight cancellations have took to social media to express their dissent against the airline’s service. 

An X user Debashish Goswami, on January 1 tagged the Ministry of Civil Aviation and said, “Kindly shut down Alliance Air. Their Mumbai Diu flight in particular is highly unreliable and is often cancelled at the last moment due to technical issues with aircraft. Cancellation is announced mostly after all passengers are at the boarding gate.”

“Worst experience today - flight to Mumbai from Diu was rescheduled twice and then cancelled - for the past 3 days this has been happening- why not stop flights to Diu - very poor customer service,” said another user named Priti on January 14.

Sreyang Suyani said on January 5 that, “Two days of chaos! First, the Diu to Mumbai flight was canceled yesterday, and now today’s flight is delayed. How do passengers plan with such unreliable service? Please provide clarity and better communication! #FrustratedTraveler.”

The Free Press Journal contacted Alliance Air for a comment but did not receive any reply until the time of going to press.