Due to fog and low visibility, passengers at the KIA left stranded for hours

  BENGALURU: At the Kempegowda International Airport, hundreds of passengers who are set to leave the city before Christmas were left stranded for hours after operations had been suspended from 6.30 AM to 7.30 AM due to fog and low visibility. According to sources the operations of 48 flights were disrupted, three were diverted.

Thirty-five flights which had been scheduled for departure and 13 for arrival were delayed. A Bengaluru-bound Blue Dart flight from Mumbai, an Indigo flight (6E521) from Kochi and a Spicejet flight (SG 1035) from Hyderabad were diverted to the Chennai airport.

As per sources, the visibility standby which was declared by the authorities at 5.31 AM was withdrawn after three hours at 8.38 AM.

“My Indigo flight to Chennai was supposed to take off at 9.30am. However, boarding was delayed by 20 minutes. After boarding, we were stuck in the aircraft for nearly one hour and 20 minutes. The flight finally took off at 11.20am, nearly two hours after the scheduled time of departure,” said Susan Jacob, a passenger.

Manipal Global Education chairman TV Mohandas Pai twitter: “Bangalore airport, overcrowded, AC poor, queues in toilet, working much beyond capacity, slow expansion only by 2020 @jayantsinha Minister pl visit to review, we suffer from overcrowding, a apathetic management, bad rude customer service @DrParameshwara (sic).”

Responding to Pai, Bengaluru International Airport Limited (BIAL) tweeted: “Dear Sir, noted and we are committed to working on the same. The increased load and traffic was due to the holiday season travel over the last 2-3 days and fog (sic).”