Air India faces ‘overwhelming’ demand during bookings for Vande Bharat Mission Phase 3

Air India on Friday opened bookings for around 300 flights to various countries including the USA and the UK under phase-3 of the Vande Bharat Mission that resulted in “overwhelming” demand from travellers as the national carrier got six crore hits on its website during the first two hours of opening the bookings.

Many travellers vented their ire on social media, stating that Air India’s website did not function properly during the first few hours of opening when most of the flights got sold out.

The national carrier opened its bookings at 5 PM and it posted the following on Twitter at 6.08 PM on Friday: “Demand for seats from India on flights planned under Mission Vande Bharat-3 is overwhelming. Sectors/ Flights are being opened in a systematic manner for booking, on the website.” In response, a passenger named Vicky Ravi tweeted, “I’ve been trying to book flights for the last one hour, ur website crashed. Please kindly help me with the booking”.