Many flights sent to Jaipur, Lucknow

It took Geeta Sharma seven hours to complete an otherwise 1.5 hour-journey to reach Delhi from Ahmedabad on Tuesday. Deteriorating fog conditions over Delhi saw 22 domestic flights and three international flights heading for the Capital diverted to Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Jaipur. Passengers who were to be in Delhi in the morning for various appointments or to catch connecting flights were left sitting in the aircraft till afternoon. When visibility finally improved at about 11 am and flights started landing, there was absolute chaos at the arrival terminal as several flights landed almost one after the other.
Sharma reached the Ahmedabad airport at 5.30 am for a 6.25 am flight to Delhi. Her flight took off on time but midway through the journey, the passengers were told due to bad weather conditions over Delhi, the flight would be diverted to Jaipur. "We spent over an hour at Jaipur but none of the flight crew was able to tell us when we would leave for Delhi. They did not serve us any food either. When we finally landed at Delhi, we spent close to an hour sitting inside the aircraft. First there was no step-ladder and then the coaches did not turn up. We got to the terminal around 1.15 pm. It took another half an hour before we got our luggage. I had to catch a flight to Muscat at 1.30 pm which now I have missed. I have to figure out what to do now,'' she said.
A Spice Jet passenger from Kolkata, Asim Roy, said they left Kolkata at 6.45 am and were to arrive in Delhi at 9 am. "We were diverted to Ahmedabad since the visibility here was poor. At 1 pm we finally landed in Delhi but then it took 45 minutes for our luggage to come. There was absolute chaos inside the terminal as several flights seemed to have landed at the same time and several belts were handling luggage of two flights,'' he said.
14/01/09 Neha Lalchandani/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Jan 2009