An official said that flight AF-225 was scheduled to take off at 1:10 a.m. local time on Wednesday, but a technical glitch caused it to remain at Terminal 3 of the airport for hours.
A video shows the crew and the pilot urging the passengers to offload their checked-in luggage, as the plane could not otherwise take off.
#WATCH Staff of Air France flight AF225 from Delhi to Paris asks 26 passengers to voluntarily disembark, as their checked-in luggage would need to be offloaded for the plane to be able to take off, due to a technical problem. pic.twitter.com/LKw5Csq7IE
— ANI (@ANI) July 10, 2019
Nevertheless, the crew members were unable to tell passengers what the glitch was.
The flight finally took off at 3:46 a.m. local time after being delayed for more than two and a half hours.
Air France in New Delhi has not issued any official statement about the technical glitch.
Earlier this week, Air France decided to increase its passenger-carrying capacity between India and Europe by more than 25 percent citing India as a "strategic market".
"One of the major challenges in India is the route profitability. From a historical point of view, it has always been a bit of challenge. Our flights are doing well. But the economical performance is always a bit of a concern", Welmer Blom, senior vice-president (Middle East, Gulf and India), Air France KLM, told Indian news agency PTI.
