Kolkata, Apr 24 (IANS): An Air India flight from Delhi with 254 passengers and crew on board suffered a bird hit while landing at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport here on Monday, an AI spokesman said.

The impact was, however, negligible. The aircraft AI 401 had a normal landing at around 9.05 a.m.

"It was a negligible impact," the spokesman told IANS.

Airport sources said the engineers came to know of the bird hit while carrying out routine maintenance on the ground before operating the next flight.

The spokesman said the aircraft has not suffered much damage.

However, as a result, the Kolkata-Delhi return flight, that was scheduled to take off at 10.15 a.m., was delayed and will now take off at 5.30 p.m.

There are 240 passengers on the Kolkata-Delhi flight. The same aircraft was supposed to fly them, the spokesman said.

"But as it was thoroughly checked as per standard operating procedure, the flight got delayed. We are arranging an alternative aircraft for flying out the passengers," the spokesman added.