Air India to refund fare, give travel voucher to passengers who were stranded in Russia

In a rare gesture, Tata Group’s Air India will give a full refund to passengers of the June 6 Delhi-San Francisco (SFO) nonstop which had to be diverted to Magadan in Russia after the Boeing 777’s engine developed a snag. The 232 passengers and crew members finally reached SFO at 12.37 pm Thursday (IST), on the alternate AI aircraft sent from Mumbai. They had left Delhi on June 6 at 4.05 am (IST). So what was to be a 14-15 hour nonstop eventually turned out to be an almost 57-hour journey with the 39-hour stop in Magadan.