Air travellers caught unawares as more than 70 flights cancelled

Air travellers caught unawares as more than 70 flights cancelled

SwathyR.Iyer@timesgroup.com

26.05.2020

Bengaluru: At least 74 flights — 34 outbound and 40 incoming — were cancelled at Kempegowda International Airport on Monday, Day One of resumption of domestic flight operations. Restrictions imposed by several states late on Sunday night led to the cancellations.

Many passengers, who made the long journey to KIA early on Monday, were caught unawares and had to return home when told that their flights had been cancelled. While the airport was initially expected to handle 215 flights — 108 departures and 107 arrivals — on Monday, it recorded only about 60 departures and 54 arrivals, according to Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL), which operates KIA.

More than one third of scheduled departures and arrivals had to be cut due to the cancellations. Most were on the Bengaluru-Mumbai, Bengaluru-Kolkata, Bengaluru-Chennai, Bengaluru-Mangaluru and Bengaluru-Hyderabad sectors among others.

Late on Sunday night, minister of civil aviation, Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted, “Starting tomorrow, there will be limited flights from Mumbai and as per the approved 1/3 schedule from other airports in the state. Limited operations in West Bengal will commence on 28th May 2020 (sic).”

In another tweet, the minister said, “As per request of state govt, operations in Andhra Pradesh will recommence on limited scale from May 26. For Tamil Nadu, there will be max 25 arrivals in Chennai but there’s no limit on number of departures. For other airports in TN, flights will operate as in other parts of the country.”

The Bengaluru airport is currently running at reduced capacity and slots have been optimised at 10-minute intervals, spread over an hour through the day, to support passenger flow within the terminal. “KIA will continue to operate as per flight schedules,” a Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) spokesperson said.

Till 5pm on Monday, KIA had recorded a total 74 flights – 43 departures and 31 arrivals.

Mangaluru flights hit too

In Mangaluru too, it was not the kind of push back to domestic flying that airlines operating to Mangaluru International Airport (MIA) were looking for as four out of the six scheduled flights were cancelled on Monday.

Indigo flight 6E0279 was the first to touch down with 47 passengers at 6.45pm and returned to the state capital with 35 passengers at 7.30pm. Since 13 of the 47 passengers had travelled from Delhi, Madurai and Pune to reach Mangaluru, they were sent to compulsory 14-day quarantine including seven-day institutional quarantine. The other passengers were stamped and sent home quarantine.

While SpiceJet cancelled its flight SG1035 from Bengaluru that was scheduled to land at MIA at 10am, it also cancelled SG0356 from Mumbai. Indigo said it had cancelled flight 6E5327 from Mumbai that was scheduled to land at 11am and return at 11.40am, up to May 27. Indigo also cancelled flight 6E7141 that was scheduled to arrive from Chennai at 7.35pm and depart at 8.05pm, said MIA director VV Rao.

The only flights that operated for the day were Indigo flight 6E0279 and Spice-Jet flight SG3743, both from Bengaluru.

(With inputs from Jaideep Shenoy)

BACK IN BIZ: Flight services at KIA was smooth on Monday and many were impressed with the contactless arrangements. Those arriving from six states were ferried in BMTC buses to institutional quarantine facilities, while others went hom