Absent pilot, not fog delays Jet flight

New Delhi: Passengers of a Jetlite flight to Mumbai who believed they were delayed in the Capital due to fog on Wednesday were taken aback to know that it was actually an absentee pilot who caused the flight to be delayed by three hours.
According to Pranav Rathi (name changed on request), a passenger on board, the flight, S2 107, was scheduled to leave Delhi at 10.05 am. "I reached the airport much before time but there was no information on the flight till about 9.35 am. That is when the flight information system started flashing information on the departure. Around 9.50 am, the airline made the `last and final call' and I boarded the flight in another five minutes. However, then on, we waited on board for an hour, presuming that we were delayed due to the fog. It was only when some passengers got agitated and asked the cabin crew why we weren't moving that we got to know that the pilot was missing,'' he said.
According to sources, the pilot who was supposed to fly the aircraft to Mumbai, was flying another aircraft to Delhi and had been delayed due to the fog.
Finally, about 11.50 am, the airline arranged for another pilot. However, by the time he came to take over, the flight had lost its place in the take-off sequence and had to wait another 45 minutes before it could leave.
21/01/10 Neha Lalchandani/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Jan 2010, JetLite Jan 2010