New Delhi:
The dense fog that had shrouded the capital since Friday night lifted towards the afternoon on Saturday and flight schedules slowly returned to normal. But there are some 200 passengers who will not forget their experience at the Delhi airport in a hurry.
Their flight was to leave for Ahmedabad at 9:40 pm on Friday but was cancelled. What followed was a 12-hour ordeal inside two planes.
A passenger recounted his ordeal with NDTV.
Here's a first hand account:We boarded the aircraft (Flight SG117) and the take-off was at 9:40 pm then it was delayed to 11:55. I am not sure but we must have boarded around 11:20 pm then it got a little foggy. We saw other flights coming in. At 12: 30 finally we were prepared to take a hike.
Now we were told that there was a second crew that was coming in and as soon as they came we would take off. I guess the fog didn't clear. After there were some SpiceJet aircrafts that landed but this crew was diverted somewhere else, as a result our flight was cancelled and we kept sitting in the plane for maybe about two hours at 1:30 am. We were told that the terminal was busy.
After that one of the duty crew very nicely told us to keep sitting and that's what we did. We decided to stick it out and we had fun. What kind of fun we could have had in the middle of the Delhi airport in winters at 1:30 am you can imagine.
There were negotiations with ground duty crew but in vain. The ground crew asked us to sit at the terminal but we knew once we got off the plane that's all, we would have not been able to reach Ahmedabad. So, we stayed in the plane.
At 5:00 or 4:00 am or maybe earlier I am not sure but we got to know around 4:00-4:30 am that they'd be putting us on a special plane - SG1171.
Things had reached to such a state that passengers did not believe the duty crew and as a result a group of passengers first went out to check if there was a special plane available and then the rest of the passengers followed.
We got on to another plane at around 6:50 am, which was supposed to leave at 7:20 am and then we had thick fog.
We are sure SpiceJet didn't do that (fog).
We are sitting since then. We've been told we'll take off in 40 minutes. It's around 9:45 am.
SpiceJet, in a statement, said: "Due to dense fog and below minimum operating visibility at New Delhi, Flight SG117 to Ahmedabad was first rescheduled to 11:55 pm and later cancelled at 12:30 am. We arranged for a special flight to the destination the next morning departing at 7:25 am. The passengers were informed at 1:15 am. Passengers connecting in Delhi were offered hotel accommodation. Most passengers chose to stay on board till 3:30 am. Reboarding of passengers started at 6:15 am. Refreshments were served to passengers on board and on ground.
(This is a passenger sent mobile phone video)