The Indian Civil Aviation Authority has fined an airline for leaving passengers on the tarmac in the southern Indian state of Karnataka.
A Go First flight, formerly known as Go Air, took off from Bengaluru’s airport, leaving more than 50 passengers stranded in a bus.
According to reports, the passengers had checked in their luggage and had boarding passes in hand.
The airline stated that it was looking into the incident.
Go First apologized to passengers who complained on Twitter, but has yet to explain what caused the misunderstanding.
The flight from Bengaluru to Delhi took off at 06:20 on Monday, despite the fact that several passengers were still on one of its buses on the tarmac.
“The ground crew was checking to see if the flight took off,” one of the passengers, Sumit Kumar, told news channel NDTV. “At first, they said the flight would return.”
After the flight left, angry passengers tweeted about their experience, criticising Go First for its “negligence“.