Chandra stranded

A flight to Chandigarh leaves without director N Chandra. He claims he wasn't informed

A flight to Chandigarh leaves without director N Chandra. He claims he wasn't informed

Director N Chandra along with some of the cast and crew of his film Yeh Mera India were left stranded at Santa Cruz airport on Tuesday morning. The flight to Chandigarh from Mumbai took off without them even though they had the boarding passes in hand and their baggage was checked in.

They were scheduled to fly by Jet Airways flight 9W317 slated for 10.45 am. When they reached the boarding gate at 10.40 am they were told the flight had already taken off. They were later told that their baggage had been offloaded too.

"It came as a shock to us," says Chandra. "The flight was already delayed and we were sitting at a coffee shop. In fact, we made it a point to sit at the periphery so that we could hear the announcements. We were joking that we are hearing about all the flights except ours."

The director was en route to Chandigarh for the promotion of his film that stars Sarika, Anupam Kher, Perizaad Zorabian, Parveen Dabas, Smilie Suri, Atul Kulkarni and Seema Biswas among others.

N Chandra with Smilie Suri

He was accompanied by production folk, representatives of the Pen Music and Smilie. "There were five of us and it was surprising what the airline did," says Chandra. Adds Smilie, "There was no way we could've missed the flight information. If they had time to offload the baggage, they could've made another announcement." Chandra and his team later left for Chandigarh on a Kingfisher Airlines flight.

According to a Jet Airways spokesperson, "They did not show up at the boarding gate despite announcements and paging. Aircraft doors were closed departure 7 mins. Normal time is 15 mins. They were therefore declared gate no-shows."