Rough day at Kolkata airport

Kolkata: It was an ordeal that the 240 Bangkok-bound passengers won’t forget in a hurry. They were confined to the international terminal of NSCBI Airport for over 12 hours because of a delay by a Thai Airways flight. One hundred and fifty seven doctors had to endure the travail, too.
The wait, which began at 11 pm on Saturday, ended at 2 pm on Sunday when Thai Airways flight TG 314 finally took off.
The passengers reported at the check-in counter between 11 pm and 12 pm on Saturday for the flight scheduled to take off 2 am on Sunday. By 1 am, the passengers had undergone security check, immigration, customs clearance and were seated in the security hold lounge.
But the boarding announcements never came. It was only an hour after the scheduled departure that an airline official informed the passengers that the flight was delayed. “The aircraft has been diverted to Dhaka due to bad weather. It will land here in an hour,” he assured them.
The officer appeared twice during the next two hours making similar noises. Thereafter, he disappeared, leaving the 240 passengers in the lurch.
The flight landed only around 2 pm, exactly 12 hours after it was scheduled to depart.
An airline source said the flight couldn’t land due to strong crosswinds. The passengers could not be provided accommodation as their passports were stamped and were “deemed to have exited Indian soil”.
24/09/07 Times of India

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Categories: Airports Sep 2007, Foreign Sep 2007