Air Sahara flies Kolkata to Delhi in 17 hours !

Against the scheduled two and a half hours, it took the S2-303 Air Sahara flight around 17 hours to reach New Delhi from Kolkata. After taking off from Kolkata at 7.40 pm yesterday, the plane was scheduled to arrive in New Delhi at around 10 pm last night, but it finally landed this noon. Needless to say, the passengers, who kept shuttling between Kolkata, Delhi, Lucknow and back to Kolkata and then Delhi again, were angry when they finally touched the Delhi ground today. “The airline is ill-equipped to handle passengers,” said Vishwas, an angry passenger. The pilot was reportedly directed by the air traffic control of the Delhi Airport not to land because of poor visibility. “The plane kept hovering over the Delhi airport for about an hour,” said Kamal. The plane was then taken to Lucknow airport for landing, but with no accommodation arranged for the passengers the flight was taken back to Kolkata, said the passengers.

The flight reached from where it started at around 3.30 this morning. As if this was not enough, the airlines staff refused to arrange accommodation for the passengers. “In a very rude manner, the staff asked us to arrange our own accommodation,” said Aman, another passenger travelling on the route. The airline allegedly asked people who booked their tickets from Kolkata itself to go home and come back next day, not realising that many of them were tourists and didn’t belong to the city. However, on persistence, some of the passengers were finally given accommodation in Hyatt Regency, Kolkata, along with the taxi fare. When some passengers, like Kirti, asked for refund of the fare, the airline expressed their “inability to do so immediately”. Similar harassment were seen with passengers on other routes as well. It was a long wait for Rahul Verma, trying to board a flight to Bangalore.

“The airline is not giving accurate information about the time and whether I will be able to board the plane or not. I’m stuck with no accurate piece of word from the authorities,” he said. Rahul was to join a Bangalore firm today. Not being from Delhi, he spent his last night in the visitors’ lounge, hoping to board a plane this morning. Meanwhile, only four Indian flights managed to take off while two could land under CAT 3B. With the backlog getting longer and passengers getting impatient, the airlines and airport staff are having a tough time convincing the passengers for the delays caused and arranging alternate flights.

visit us @ http://www.silkrouteholidays.com