Flight delay forces fliers to spend night on aerobridge

More than 100 passengers of an IndiGo flight from Lucknow to Hyderabad on Thursday evening spent the night on the aerobridge at Lucknow airport after the flight

More than 100 passengers of an IndiGo flight from Lucknow to Hyderabad on Thursday evening spent the night on the aerobridge at Lucknow airport after the flight was delayed for about nine hours owing to bad weather in Delhi.

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IndiGo’s flight 6E 278 was to take off at 9.15pm from Lucknow’s Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport, but passengers were told about the delay just as they were on the aerobridge.

While a few passengers were offered hotel stay for the night and refund, most of them remained on the aerobridge. The Airbus A320neo aircraft which was scheduled to reach Hyderabad at 11.15pm on Thursday, landed there at 8.19am on Friday after it took off at 6am from Lucknow with 132 passengers.

A K Sharma, director of Lucknow airport said, “The passengers were informed about the cancellation seconds before they could start entering the aircraft. Due to this, they stood at the aerobridge.”

Raj Vasireddy, a resident of Hyderabad who was among the passengers said, “The airline kept changing the departure time and finally at around 2am we were taken to the aerobridge. We were not given any updates even then. We were not able to use the washrooms, due to which we shouted leading to chaos. Only after that, we were allowed to go to the boarding area. The airline did not provide hotel stay for any passenger and had poor management.”

Senior airport officials said that the passengers got aggressive and were not ready to leave the aerobridge even when airline staff requested them to wait in the boarding area.

Central Industrial Security Force (CISF’s) quick reaction team (QRT) was called to handle the situation. “Though the situation was brought under control, the passengers continued to remain on the aerobridge,” said the senior official.

IndiGo did not comment on the matter. However, an airline official said, “The flight was delayed to due bad weather at Delhi. The aircraft, that was to take off from Lucknow to Hyderabad, had operated a Delhi-bound sector before landing at Lucknow. As flight operations at Delhi were disrupted due to heavy rains and thunderstorms, the flight had a delayed take-off from the national capital. By the time it landed at Lucknow, the pilot of the aircraft declared that he could not operate flights anymore due to FDTL [flight duty time limitations] issues.”

FDTL prescribe resting time for airline crews to ensure they do suffer work fatigue.

Sources from the airport said, “Hotel rooms were unavailable because of the peak wedding season in Lucknow. However, few passengers were able to shift to a nearby hotel.”

Neo aircraft fitted with unmodified Pratt & Whitney (P&W) engines have been giving trouble for some time now and have been asked by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to replace the engines with modified low-pressure turbine (LPT) engines.