Fuel emergency on flight with Indian boxing team

MUMBAI: A Spicejet flight, ferrying the Indian boxing team to the United Arab Emirates for the Asian Boxing Championship 2021, was forced to circle around Dubai for 45 minutes on Saturday and allowed to land only after it declared a fuel emergency.

While government officials said the delay was caused due to confusion over the flight plan in Iran’s capital Tehran, there were reports that the airline took 37 people (31 passengers and six crew members) on board after declaring the flight to be a cargo one. The airline denied this.

“An Indian boxing contingent travelled on a Spicejet flight from Delhi to Dubai today. The aircraft has reached Dubai safely and all passengers have cleared immigration. The flight and passengers carried proper documentation. The flight was not filed/categorised as a cargo flight and this information is absolutely wrong and is denied,” an airline spokesperson said.

News agency PTI reported that there may have been some confusion over the approval of the contingent’s visit. The contingent included six-time world champion Mary Kom and one of India’s best boxers Amit Panghal.

Interestingly, Boxing Federation of India subsequently issued a statement, thanking the Indian ambassador to the UAE for his assistance. The statement added that the team flew “under the air bubble arrangement”, with “all relevant permissions” and that two rounds of RT-PCR tests were conducted on the team -- at the airport and the hotel. Ajay Singh, chairman and managing director of Spicejet, is also the president of the Boxing Federation of India.

The airline said it was a regular passenger flight under the air bubble agreement with UAE. The UAE has barred all travellers from India since April 25 -except UAE nationals, diplomatic passport holders and official delegation letter holders -- due to the second wave of the Covid-19 pan