Srinagar flight takes off after delay, but returns

Bad weather in Srinagar left nearly 150 passengers of a Spice Jet flight to the Kashmir city a harried lot on Tuesday.

Bad weather in Srinagar left nearly 150 passengers of a Spice Jet flight to the Kashmir city a harried lot on Tuesday.

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The Srinagar-bound flight took off from Chandigarh airport at 2.30pm, almost an hour-and-a-half behind the schedule take-off time of 1.10pm, and then turned back mid-way and landed home around 3.30pm - all because of the weather conditions in Srinagar.

An official of the airline said the fight was first delayed, but later took off. Though passengers cried foul, the official said that they were forced to turn the flight back to Chandigarh due to bad weather in Srinagar. “The flight landed back in Chandigarh at around 3:30pm,” he said.

A passenger claimed that the officials of the airline kept changing the time of the take off and kept reason behind the delay a secret from passengers. “We were made to sit in the plane for around 30 minutes when the flight came back to Chandigarh,” said the aggrieved passenger.

“We were caught unawares and the airline officials did not even give us a convincing reason for the delay and later cancellation of the flight,” rued another passenger.