Overview
- IndiGo flight 6E‑6544 from Varanasi to Mumbai was held for about three and a half hours after the assigned pilot suddenly reported sick and a replacement was flown in from Ahmedabad on Thursday.
- Airport director Puneet Gupta said the service was later operated and denied reports of passenger unrest while the airline said passengers were informed and given refreshments during the wait.
- A separate Lucknow–Dammam service diverted to Ahmedabad when a crew member found a paper reading “bomb,” and local police, CISF and the BDDS searched the aircraft and found no suspicious item.
- The Varanasi delay underlines how crew basing works: stations that are not airline crew bases must wait for crews to be repositioned, which can magnify delays when staff become unavailable.
- Both incidents demonstrate routine contingency steps—sourcing replacement crew and conducting full security sweeps—that protect safety but can lengthen disruption for travellers and complicate airport operations.