Air India website crashes after international bookings begin for Vande Bharat phase 3
The Air India website received an 'overwhelming' demand form travelers as it opened its portal for the booking for 300 international flights to destinations in countries including the US and the UK.
On Saturday morning, Air India said that it had received 22,000 bookings till 8 am. The website experienced 7-8 times more activity than it expected.
In a tweet Air India said, "#FlyAI: Bookings for select destinations in USA, Canada, UK & Europe etc under Phase3 of #MissionVandeBharat opened at 5pm today. Around 60 million hits received till 7pm on our website & 1700 seats sold through website alone in 2 hrs. Bookings continue & tickets are being issued."
Several Twitter users then pointed out that the Air India website was down and the ticket purchase was not going through
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.”
Earlier, Air India said that it will operate 75 flights to North America from next week.
Till June 2, Air India has brought back 25,046 passengers under this mission, while Air India Group has repatriated 57,574 passengers.
As per schedule, the airline will be operating 75 flights from India to select destinations in USA and Canada from June 9 to June 30.
