Mumbai: Aircraft movements at the main runway of the Mumbai airport was restored last night after the airport operator removed the SpiceJet aircraft which had skidded after landing amid heavy rains on Tuesday.
The operations at runway 09/27 resumed at around 11:30pm after SpiceJet Boeing 737 was moved to the paved area and subsequently to a hanger, a Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) official said.
The problems of airline travellers flying in and out of Mumbai just multiplied from Tuesday night. The flight operations were completely suspended between 6:50pm and 7:10pm at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) as the visibility dropped to 400 metres due to heavy rains on Tuesday. This was followed by the SpiceJet Boeing 737 aircraft carrying 183 people overshot a wet runway while landing at the airport. All passengers were safely evacuated. However, this catapulated into a major chaos and cancellation of flights in and out of Mumbai.
Nearly 108 flights were cancelled on Wednesday and 56 flights were diverted to different airports till Wednesday morning. Among those cancelled, 63 Jet Airways, 8 IndiGo, 3 SpiceJet and 1 GoAir flights were cancelled due to bad weather at Mumbai airport. Hundreds of passengers were stranded overnight and the Mumbai airport resembled a sleep over camp.
Amrita Kaur who was stranded at the CSIA, while flying out to Bhutan tweeted, @AmritaOfLife Bhutan I’m going to see you soon So much drama has happened in last 20 hours thanks to beautiful rains.
Passengers and even officials of airlines took to social media platforms to note the delays.
Meanwhile, a passenger @vbmadhava tweeted to @jayantsinha – this shows that senior Govt. officials lacks future planning and vision, being a big airport, doesn’t have secondary run.
In fact Sanjiv Kapoor, CSCO Vistara airlines assured the passengers – .@airvistara is waiving all change and cancel fees for those who wish to reschedule their BOM flights today (in or out of BOM)
Bhavisha Joshi, a Mumbai based Public Relations consultant had to board a flight to Bhopal at 5.50am and till mid afternoon she received no SMS alert or call from the airlines, Jet informing her of any cancellation or delay of her flight. After innumerable calls she got a flight rescheduled for the evening. “When I reached the airport early there were 500 people outside and double those inside the airport. There was chaos and confusion. Nobody responded till mid afternoon. They should have kept us informed,” Joshi told Free Press Journal.
The scenes were no different at Bangalore where passengers who had booked a late evening flight on Tuesday were stranded at the airport till 2.00am without being informed of the closure of runway or cancellation of flights. After 1.30am the Jet airways official who asked passengers to leave the airport was hauled up. “Some passengers got angry, it was rather insensitive way of telling people to go away and there was an outburst as the airline refused to reimburse or book us on another flight. After waiting for long it was rude to ask us to spend on an expensive flight,” Radharaman Panicker shared with FPJ.
In fact Panicker was later booked on a morning flight on Wednesday. Despite flights getting cancelled which the Mumbai airport site showed, the Jet airways was accepting bookings. “I went early to the airport and realised that the airlines was accepting bookings despite informing us that the flight was cancelled. There was no forthright communication. I finally landed in the evening,” said Panicker.
In fact the NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) of closure of main Runway 09/27 at Mumbai airport extended by four hours up to 10pm on Wednesday and flights are expected to be get normalised only later on Thursday.
