40-minute wait for Rahul Gandhi at IGI airport

New Delhi: The practice of asking even big long-haul planes to take off from the smallest runway of IGI Airport in these extremely hot and windy days forced Congress MP and the Gandhi family scion, Rahul Gandhi, to shuttle from one runway to another for over half an hour on Thursday afternoon. The young leader was aboard Virgin Atlantic's flight VS 301 that reached the take-off point of the smallest runway (27) at 2.45pm. But a combination of very high temperature and strong tail winds forced the pilot to abandon take-off.
The aircraft reached the international terminal parking bay 88 minutes later at 2.55pm, as taxiing from runway 27 means crossing the closed main runway (28). Sources said that after refuelling, the pilot sought to take off from the third runway (29) that is long enough to provide the heavy plane the required run-up to lift off with its massive weight. The plane finally took off at 3.25pm 40 minutes after the scheduled time. Passengers remained inside the aircraft during this delay.
Aircraft are supposed to take off against the direction of wind and a tail wind component of not more than 7-10 knots (up to 18.5kmph). This summer, since runway 28 is closed, runway 27 is being used for take-offs. But these days when the temperature is high, pilots of long-haul flights operating heavy machines refuse to take off from this and seek runway 29. This is what happened on Thursday afternoon, said sources.
18/06/10 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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Categories: Airports Jun 2010