New Delhi:
Flight delays and chaos marred the first day of private airlines Jet Airways and Kingfisher's shift of operations to the swanky new terminal T3 of the IGI Airport.
The shift was made on Saturday night.
While the actual reason for the delay was not known, most flights arriving at T3 were delayed by at least half-an-hour. It is believed that the flights took off late from their origin locations. A Jet Airlines plane from Kolkata hovered over T3 for about 45 minutes before landing, Airport sources said.
Apart from the delays, passengers also faced problems with luggage retrieval. Many had to wait for over 30 minutes to collect their luggage from the specified conveyors.
Ever since the Air India moved its entire domestic operations to the new terminal last week, there has been total chaos. Troubles continued to haunt passengers on Saturday as 14 of its domestic flights were delayed by upto three hours while one was cancelled.
"These flights were delayed as aircraft from other cities came late. In order to maintain the schedule, one flight to Mumbai (IC 602) was cancelled," an airline official said.
The national carrier shifted its domestic operations from terminal 1A to terminal 3 from the midnight of November 10-11.
But the operations were severely affected due to shortage of ground handling staff and cabin crew, which led to cancellations and inordinate delays of flights by upto 10 hours.
The airline entered into a ground handling pact with Singapore Airport Terminal Services (SATS) and a joint venture AISATS was formed for ground handling at several metro airports.
Sources said AISATS failed to provide the staff as a result of which the national carrier had to fly in over 100 employees from across the country to manage the operations at T3.
But the enormity of terminal turned out to be a hindrance for them, as they were neither familiar nor trained to handle the new systems installed there.
The flights were delayed due to lack of cabin crew, who many a time complained about being stuck in traffic jam at Mahipalpur crossing on the National Highway-8, from where the road for T3 begins.
The situation is likely become worse as Jet Airways and Kingfisher shift their operations to T3.
(Read: Kingfisher shifts its domestic operations to T3)"It is likely to be more chaotic as passengers would find it difficult to negotiate with one of the world's biggest terminals," an airport official said.
The airlines have asked their passengers to report two hours before the scheduled departure of their flight in order to manage the situation. (With PTI inputs)