the goan I network
VASCO
Sixteen flights were diverted, four were cancelled and one was delayed, as heavy rains brought flight operations at Dabolim airport to a standstill for about 4 hours on Wednesday.
Flights were prevented from landing at Dabolim Airport from 2 pm on account of inclement weather conditions.
The disruption in the arrival of 21 flights caused inconvenience to several hundreds of passengers who were planning to board these flights at Dabolim airport.
According to information from Airport Director B C H Negi, the 16 flights diverted comprised Indigo Airlines (8), Air India (2), Spice Jet (2), Air Asia (2), GoAir (1) and Vistara (1), while one Spice Jet flight was delayed by around 23 minutes. These flights were diverted to Hyderabad, Bangalore and Mumbai.
The bad weather at Dabolim airport also led to the cancellation of 4 Indigo flights.
Airport sources told The Goan that flight operations resumed after 6.30 pm and the diverted flights started arriving at Dabolim Airport later at night.
Meanwhile, chaos prevailed at Mumbai airport when several passengers confronted the Indigo Airlines staff over the sudden cancellation of the Mumbai-Goa flight.
A passenger, Navin Jha, called up The Goan to say that their Indigo flight was cancelled from Mumbai at the last minute, without prior information, leaving passengers surprised and stranded.
“I was in the line to board the aircraft and five minutes before departure time, they informed us about the cancellation of the flight,” said Jha.
“I have an important meeting at Goa planned early Thursday morning and this sudden cancellation is ridiculous. Many people stranded due to the cancellation of the flight are tourists and they were complaining that they could lose money as they had booked hotels in Goa,” said Jha.
Sources said some of the stranded passengers later left for Goa in inter-state buses.
