Mumbai rains: IndiGo leads cancellations with 32 flights for second day, 350 services delayed

Mumbai: Heavy rains lashing the city since the weekend continued to hit flight operations from the city Thursday, leading to 32 cancellations, mostly of IndiGo, and over 350 flight delays. Of the cancelled flights, 18 were departures and the rest 14 were arrivals, as per the live flight tracking website Flightradar24. The GVK group-run airport operator did not provide any update except the one in the morning when in brief statement, it claimed that “operations are normal”. [caption id=“attachment_5506871” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] On Wednesday as well, operations were hit as 455 flights were delayed and around 20 were cancelled, with most of them again by Indigo due to the heavy rains that brought the city to a grinding halt. IndiGo was even forced to suspend operations at the Mumbai airport on Wednesday night as it did not have required manpower to operate them, as per a source. As per Flightradar24 data, as many as 271 arrivals and 71 departing flights were affected Thursday. IndiGo in a statement said it was sending staff from other stations to normalise its Mumbai operations. “Operations were hampered by the fact that some of our staff could not reach the airport due to the flooded roads. A limited number of passengers too faced similar issues and were unable to reach the airport,” IndiGo said. IndiGo took all measures to minimise cancellations these two days. This included sending staff of different categories from other stations to Mumbai, accommodating them in nearby hotels, the airline claimed. It also said the situation is normalising and it is taking corrective measures during the course of the day if required, it said and claimed that all passengers of cancelled flights were contacted and offered refund and re-accommodation. With local train services slowing down or coming to a standstill and traffic snarls on major roads, airlines and airport staff were unable to reach the workplace, resulting in delays and cancellations Wednesday and its spill-over effect continued Thursday, sources said. “My IndiGo flight for Jaipur was scheduled for 7.55 pm on Wednesday but it took off at 6 am Thursday and landed in Jaipur at 8 am. This was after being forced to board the flight around last midnight,” a passenger told PTI. “The airline did not offer dinner and we were forced to come out onto the tarmac and create a ruckus. Someone even called security forces,” the harried passenger added. The incident is being investigated by the DGCA. The Mumbai airport handles around 1,000 flight arrivals and departures a day.