Airlines and passengers struggle to as Jal disrupted flight schedules

Chennai: Passengers of the Delhi-Bangalore-Chennai Air India flight IC 439 stood up and clapped soon after the plane touched down at the airport in the early hours of Monday. It was an impulsive gesture, to celebrate the end of a six-hour ordeal as the flight was diverted twice due to poor visibility and strong gusts caused by the cyclonic storm.
The storm may have petered out but the rains that lashed the city on Sunday kept operations staff of all airlines on tenterhooks. They had a tough time managing the passengers, allotting crew and maintaining aircraft even as diversions and delays at the airport affected schedules across the country.
Operations staff of domestic airlines had no clue as to when the delayed flights would take off.
Another Delhi-Chennai Air India flight was delayed by five hours and passengers were left in the lurch at Delhi's T3 terminal without food or announcement about the departure.
Sources said the confusion happened because several aircraft were not arriving on time due to the diversions. Airlines often use one aircraft to service more than one or two sectors in the domestic leg. Hence, a delay in any one sector can impact the other sectors the aircraft is scheduled to cover.
09/11/10 Times of India

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Categories: Airports Nov 2010