Passengers face harrowing time at Ranchi airport as flight ops hit

Ranchi, Dec 5 (PTI) Passengers had a harrowing time at the Ranchi airport on Friday as flight operations of IndiGo were affected, officials said.

Airport Director Vinod Kumar told PTI that nearly 18 incoming and an equal number of outgoing flights of IndiGo were cancelled during the day, causing inconvenience to passengers.

These flights would have departed to or arrived from Delhi, Bhubaneshwar, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Pune, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, he said.

Kumar said the display board outside the airport were promptly giving all updates about cancellations and delays, but admitted to the absence of communication through email or SMS on behalf of the airline.

"We will take the matter up with the airlines so that such communication can be ensured for the convenience of travellers," he said.

He said the issue would be resolved soon.

"It is basically due to crew and pilot shortage owing to the new rules for mandatory rest period for crew members and pilots. Talks are going on at the highest level, and things will be resolved soon," he said.

Passengers, meanwhile, vented their anger at the airline staff at the airport.

Malavika Sengupta, an entrepreneur from Jamshedpur, said, "I had booked a ticket to Delhi a fortnight back and was supposed to take a connecting flight from Delhi to Jaipur for an important meeting on Saturday. There was no communication, and I landed at Ranchi airport to know that the flight had been cancelled." IndiGo operates around 2,300 flights a day and has been cancelling flights in hundreds over the last four days as it struggled to secure adequate crew, with the second phase of the pilots' flight duty and rest period norms kicking in.

Aviation watchdog DGCA provided a raft of exemptions to the crisis-hit airline in the evening to help normalise its operations. IndiGo on Friday alone cancelled over 1,000 flights. PTI ANB SOM