In festival season, there's been little to celebrate for anyone flying Air India in or out of Visakhapatnam.

Sixty two passengers waited endlessly at Visakhapatnam airport after the Vizag-Delhi Air India flight developed technical trouble and returned to the airport on Thursday afternoon. The flight had arrived from Chennai on Thursday morning, and with no other airline flying on the Vizag-Delhi sector, passengers had no option but to cool their heels first at the airport and then at a hotel.

One passenger said : "They have not given any guarantee about the flight taking off. They said they will leave by night. We stayed the whole night in a hotel yet we are waiting to reach our destination. It is festival season and we want to go to Delhi. No one is taking responsibility. It is very bad."

After more than 24 hours, a total of 36 passengers were finally flown first to Hyderabad. There, they changed planes and were then taken to Delhi.

But there was more trouble for other Air India passengers.  On Friday, the Vizag to Chennai flight reported technical trouble, and deplaned passengers. Most fliers say Air India did not offer them the option of free flights on other airlines, so they bought new tickets to head to Chennai.

Vizag, the city of destiny, clearly not proving lucky for Air India and its passengers.