Bees settle on aircraft at Kolkata airport, flights delayed

Tamaghna Banerjee & Subhro Niyogi TNN

Kolkata:01.12.2020

A swarm of bees settled in on two Vistara Airlines aircraft parked in the same bay at Kolkata airport 16 hours apart, forcing an hour’s delay in the flights and deployment of fire-fighting water bowsers on both occasions to drive them away.

This is the third instance of bees taking a fancy to planes in Kolkata. Last September, bees had swarmed an Air India aircraft. The incidents on Sunday evening and Monday morning occurred at bay 25, leading to the airline requesting the airport operator to allocate another bay for the time being. The problem first occurred around 4pm on Sunday, just before boarding was to commence for the Delhi-bound flight. As the swarm settled on the plane’s exterior, boarding was put on hold and the fire services department alerted.

“Within minutes, lakhs of bees had settled on the plane as though ready to build a hive. Water jets had to be sprayed for a good 30 minutes to dislodge them. The flight ultimately took off at 6.30pm instead of 5.30pm,” said an airline official.

Vistara ground staff were in for a shock on Monday morning as well when they found the bees back on another aircraft. Though there were other planes in adjoining bays, the bees chose the Vistara aircraft scheduled to leave for Port Blair at 10.30am.

Full report on www.toi.in