Flight delay irks passengers at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Int’l Airport

Kolkata: A commotion unfolded at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International (NSCBI) airport on Sunday after passengers had to wait for over five hours due to delay in departure of a flight.

A Spice Jet flight was scheduled to take off from Kolkata airport to Tezpur at 8:05 am. Instead, it finally took off at around 2:40 pm, sources said. Passengers lashed out at the airline staff as they alleged there was no clear intimation or cooperation from the latter. They were initially informed that the flight would leave at half past twelve and then it was postponed to one. Further uncertainty clearly led to the passengers losing their cool and accusing the airline of mismanagement. One of them alleged that on approaching an airline staff he was told that he can go ahead and cancel his flight if he wishes to. The passenger alleged that instead of cooperating the airline staff behaved rudely with the passengers.Many of the passengers who came in a connecting flight also got stranded at the airport for hours due to the delay. It was learnt that the delay was due to some technical reasons. Sources said that such developments have become frequent relating to this particular airline and that the airport officials may soon complain to the DGCA if such ruckus continues to unfold due to frequent delays in flights of this airline.

Lately, flight operations took a hit due to sudden fog which led to poor visibility. Flight operations at Kolkata airport were stalled for one-and-a-half hours on Saturday morning because of dense fog. About 45 flights were delayed and two of them, bound for the city, were diverted. The operations were completely stalled between 6am and 7.30am, said an official. Several passengers missed their connecting flights from other cities because of the delay.