Flights to and from Kolkata full this weekend

Cancellation of flights due to Thursday’s bandh, coupled with the start of the winter holiday season, has sparked an unprecedented rush at Calcutta airport this weekend. Officials of Indian, Air Sahara, Jet Airways and other airlines said there were “no seats” on outgoing and incoming flights for the next two days. Even all business class tickets are booked. Extra seats on some sectors on Friday have not helped. “A huge backlog of passengers due to cancellations and tourist bookings have caused the rush. Those who would have taken flights on Thursday postponed their journey to Friday or Saturday,” said Anil Punjabi, chairman (east), Travel Agents Federation of India. “It will be extremely difficult for a passenger in an emergency to get a ticket on a domestic flight for Friday and Saturday,” he warned. There are no seats available on any of the 17 Jet Airways flights leaving the city on Friday. This, despite the airline operating an extra flight each to Port Blair and Agartala and using a bigger aircraft on the Bagdogra route.

“The incoming flights from the other metros are also full,” said a Jet official. The Indian flights, too, are all full. The airline will operate an additional flight to Port Blair. “Cancellation of tickets and postponing of trips have resulted in an additional burden of 500 passengers on each airline,” said an official. “This is an abnormal situation,” added an Air Sahara official. On Thursday, SpiceJet flights to Chennai and Guwahati took off from the city at dawn. Later, two IndiGo and SpiceJet flights were diverted to Calcutta from Guwahati due to bad weather. They took off from the city after a halt. Otherwise, only Indian Air Force planes and cargo flights operated from the airport. Around 80 passengers who had arrived to catch flights were stranded. “They did not know about the cancellations,” said an airport official.

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