A trainee ticketing agent of British Airways has been arrested for a hoax bomb call to SpiceJet flight yesterday. After receving the call yesterday, the airlines had halted the departure and conducted a thorough search.

But authorities did not find anything suspicious on the plane.

“Security officials thoroughly inspected it and did not find anything suspicious. The call was later declared as hoax,” SpiceJet spokesperson said.

Delhi Police had constituted a special team to trace the caller. The call was traced back to Abhinav Prakash, a 24-year-old trainee at the British Airways ticketing counter.

After arrest, Prakash revealed that he made the call so that his friend could spend some time with his girlfriend, who was flying to Pune.

The Delhi-Pune SpiceJet was scheduled to depart from the IGI Airport at 6.30 pm yesterday. Minutes before takeoff, a call was received at the SpiceJet reservation office about a bomb in the aircraft.

At that time, boarding of passengers for the flight had not started, an airline spokesperson said in a statement on Friday.

Following the call, the aircraft was moved to an isolation bay and was thoroughly inspected by security officials.