CHENNAI: Hundreds of passengers across the country, including many who were to catch the flight to Mumbai from Chennai, were put to hardship due to a hoax message posted on social media by an unidentified user warning, ‘I will blow up Akasa Air’.

After the tweet went viral, officials started to check all Akasa Air flights across the country, leading to delays.

The airline operates a flight between Chennai and Mumbai. As per schedule, it would arrive at 8 pm and depart to Mumbai at 9 pm.

However, due to the threat message on Friday, the flight was checked thoroughly in Mumbai and all the passengers were checked multiple times. Taking note of the situation, the officials asked all 174 passengers who had booked tickets on the flight to reach airport early. All of them were checked thoroughly before allowing them to board.

After the flight landed in Chennai, the bomb detection and disposal squad personnel and security officials checked it once again before allowing the passengers to board the flight. Airport sources said the flight was delayed by more than two hours because of this.