4,000 air passengers hit, given refund

Tribune News Service

Mohali, June 14

All 32 flights, including three international, arriving at and departing from the Chandigarh international airport were cancelled on Thursday due to poor visibility caused by dusty weather. As a result, 4,000 passengers were stranded.

People had to face huge inconvenience as many of them had to take connecting flights. “I had to board a connecting flight to London from Delhi, but I missed it,” rued a passenger. A rush of passengers was seen at the airport since morning as people kept enquiring in the hope that the weather situation might improve. They were also seen queued up for getting a refund for the tickets.

The families of Jaswinder Kaur of Patiala and Amit of Dharamsala were seen dejected outside the airport. They said they had to go to Delhi, but now they had nowhere to go as there was no prior information regarding the flight cancellation.

Deepesh Joshi, public relations officer of the airport, said, “The visibility should be 2,500 metres or above. On Thursday, it was 1,000 metres only. The Met Department informed us following which the flights were cancelled.”

The Air India Express flight operated from Delhi to Sharjah at 5.30 pm. All passengers from Chandigarh for Sharjah were shifted to Delhi to board the flight. Officials said Air India transported the passengers from Chandigarh to Delhi through luxury buses to get connecting flights to Sharjah, Dubai and Bangkok. Other flight operators refunded the ticket amount to about 4,000 passengers headed for Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Leh, Srinagar and other destinations.