Passengers gasping as airline fails to pressurize cabin
Blunder left dozens struggling for air and bleeding from the nose and ears
MUMBAI, INDIA— It’s not easy running an airline in India these days. Customers are flying more but demanding rockbottom fares. Costs are going up thanks to surging oil prices and a plunging rupee. Major airports are bursting at the seams. Cows and other animals sometimes wander onto the runways.
And then there are the self-inflicted wounds, like what happened Thursday, when Jet Airways pilots failed to properly pressurize the cabin on Flight 697 from Mumbai to Jaipur.
The blunder left dozens of the 166 passengers and five crew members gasping for air and bleeding from the nose and ears until the flight managed to return to
Mumbai, about 45 minutes after takeoff.
“It was big negligence on the part of the pilot,” said Darshak Hathi, a frequent flyer who posted a cellphone video of the terrifying trip. Compounding the original problem, he said, “the oxygen masks came down but there was no oxygen in them.”
Hathi said he was still feeling deafness in his ears. (A Jet spokesperson has disputed Hathi’s account, insisting that the masks were working.)
The problems, which were widely shared on social media, are unlikely to burnish the image of the troubled airline.
Once the crown jewel of India’s private carriers, Jet is now facing a severe cash crunch. It is desperately trying to cut costs and sell its frequent-flyer program and other assets just to keep paying crew salaries and other bills. Morale has plunged, and tax authorities visited the company’s offices Wednesday as part of an investigation into allegations of financial irregularities.
“Jet Airways has a liquidity crisis,” said Ansuman Deb, an aviation analyst at ICICI Securities. “It needs some money, right now.”
Jet has said it is addressing its broader financial issues. Regarding the cabin pressure incident, the airline pointed Thursday to a statement it posted on Twitter in which it acknowledged what happened, apologized for “the inconvenience caused to its guests” and said an investigation has begun.