Mangalore-bound Kingfisher Grounds Passengers for Five Hours

The Hindu

Bangalore, Jan 6: Some 50 passengers of Mangalore-bound Kingfisher flight (IT 2443) were stranded at the Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) for nearly five hours on Monday when the regular pilot crossed the flight duty time limit (FDTL) and the airline could not find a replacement immediately.

Passengers grew increasingly agitated as there was no proper information on the reason for delay, even as rumours were rife about the pilot absconding and possibility of the presence of dangerous material on board.

V. Jayaprakash Reddy, one of the passengers, told The Hindu that the flight, scheduled to leave the BIA at 5.30 p.m., was rescheduled. The passengers checked in and boarded the aircraft at around 6 p.m.

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However, when the flight did not take off even after an hour, this caused anxiety and temper levels to rise as the flight crew had no proper answers to passengers’ queries. Finally the passengers were deplaned around 7.15 p.m. and brought back to the check-in lounge, said Mr. Reddy. The worries of passengers, who included around 15 women and six children, increased with the delay as many of them needed to travel a further than 70 km to reach their homes after landing at Mangalore airport.

“How can I reach Udupi from Mangalore at midnight? I am travelling alone,” said an irate Shwetha, who said the airline staff did not take her seriously when she explained her difficulty to them.

“Delays are common for various technical reasons. But it is the duty of the airline operators to keep the passengers informed so that there is no panic,” said Mr. Reddy, complaining about the lack of communication on the part of airline.

The airline’s spokesperson said: “The captain who was scheduled to operate the flight from Bangalore came under the purview of the FDTL guideline which specifies the maximum number of hours the crew is allowed to fly an aircraft. This happened due to creeping delays earlier in the day in the air network. The flight therefore had to be rescheduled and another captain was rostered; but unfortunately he was reported sick. This resulted in rostering of another pilot and all these processes delayed the flight.”

It was almost 9.30 p.m. when the passengers were asked to board the aircraft again for the 10 p.m. takeoff.