New Delhi:
Tempers flared up at the swanky T-3 terminal at IGI airport for the second consecutive day on Friday as several harried passengers faced upto four hours delay in their flights while many others had a long wait for their baggage.
Air India (AI) cancelled two international and five domestic flights on the second day of its switch to T3 due to non-availability of crew members.
A large number of tired passengers had to spend hours at the airport looking for information about the status of their delayed flights, some of whom were seen losing their cool at AI officials.
The airline officials had a tough time pacifying the agitated passengers. The national carrier had to cancel two international flights, to Dubai (IC895) and to Kabul (IC843). The five
domestic flights cancelled were to proceed to Mumbai(IC805), Jaipur(AI610), Hyderabad(IC5602), Chennai(IC644) and Bangalore(IC624) due to late arrival of incoming flights, which were operating on international sectors.
"We have no information about our flights, when it will leave. There is no response from anyone," said an AI passengers who had to board flight to Amritsar.
"They do not know themselves what is going to happen, when it is going to happen. They say they have a shortage of cabin crew and they are trying to arrange. The officials don't have information as to whether the flight will take off or not. How can the crew of a scheduled flight not report on time, we don't know," said another passenger.
Air India had on Thursday shifted its entire domestic operations to T3 from T1A but delayed flights, long wait for baggage, missing crew and confusion for passengers marred the
first day.
Union Ministers Mamata Banerjee, P Chidambaram Mallikarjun Kharge, and former Minister Shashi Tharoor were among the passengers last evening who were witness to the mess at T3 after their flights got delayed due to flight crew not reporting on time.
Some crew members said delays in the incoming flights were leading to flight duty time limitation (FDTL) problems.
They pointed out that during the evening rush hour they had to pass through the immigration counters even to take domestic flights.
The required documentation to enable them do so without immigration checks were taking a lot of time to reach the officials at the counters, thus causing delays, they said.
"Non-functional walkalators" also added to the delays, they complained.
Keeping this in mind, Jet Airways on Friday asked its passengers to report at the airline counters at T3 two hours before the scheduled departure of their flights on Sunday.
The situation is likely get worse from the midnight of November 13-14, when Jet and Kingfisher Airlines, along with their low-cost subsidiaries, start their operations from T3.
After fully shifting operations to T3 on November 11, Air India's on-time performance has dropped to 30 per cent from an average of 60-70 per cent when it was operating from Terminal 1, airport sources said.
Also, the approach road to T3 is witnessing traffic jams after AI shifted its domestic operations to the new terminal. The increased traffic load led to huge jams on National Highway 8, which links the road leading to T3.
Air India (AI) cancelled two international and five domestic flights on the second day of its switch to T3 due to non-availability of crew members.
A large number of tired passengers had to spend hours at the airport looking for information about the status of their delayed flights, some of whom were seen losing their cool at AI officials.
The airline officials had a tough time pacifying the agitated passengers. The national carrier had to cancel two international flights, to Dubai (IC895) and to Kabul (IC843). The five
domestic flights cancelled were to proceed to Mumbai(IC805), Jaipur(AI610), Hyderabad(IC5602), Chennai(IC644) and Bangalore(IC624) due to late arrival of incoming flights, which were operating on international sectors.
"We have no information about our flights, when it will leave. There is no response from anyone," said an AI passengers who had to board flight to Amritsar.
"They do not know themselves what is going to happen, when it is going to happen. They say they have a shortage of cabin crew and they are trying to arrange. The officials don't have information as to whether the flight will take off or not. How can the crew of a scheduled flight not report on time, we don't know," said another passenger.
Air India had on Thursday shifted its entire domestic operations to T3 from T1A but delayed flights, long wait for baggage, missing crew and confusion for passengers marred the
first day.
Union Ministers Mamata Banerjee, P Chidambaram Mallikarjun Kharge, and former Minister Shashi Tharoor were among the passengers last evening who were witness to the mess at T3 after their flights got delayed due to flight crew not reporting on time.
Some crew members said delays in the incoming flights were leading to flight duty time limitation (FDTL) problems.
They pointed out that during the evening rush hour they had to pass through the immigration counters even to take domestic flights.
The required documentation to enable them do so without immigration checks were taking a lot of time to reach the officials at the counters, thus causing delays, they said.
"Non-functional walkalators" also added to the delays, they complained.
Keeping this in mind, Jet Airways on Friday asked its passengers to report at the airline counters at T3 two hours before the scheduled departure of their flights on Sunday.
The situation is likely get worse from the midnight of November 13-14, when Jet and Kingfisher Airlines, along with their low-cost subsidiaries, start their operations from T3.
After fully shifting operations to T3 on November 11, Air India's on-time performance has dropped to 30 per cent from an average of 60-70 per cent when it was operating from Terminal 1, airport sources said.
Also, the approach road to T3 is witnessing traffic jams after AI shifted its domestic operations to the new terminal. The increased traffic load led to huge jams on National Highway 8, which links the road leading to T3.
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