SpiceJet passengers walk on Delhi airport's tarmac after waiting for bus for 45 minutes; DGCA starts probe

New Delhi: A significant number of passengers who disembarked from SpiceJet’s Hyderabad-Delhi flight on Saturday night walked on the airport’s tarmac as the airline could not provide a bus for around 45 minutes to take them to the terminal, sources told PTI.

Aviation regulator DGCA is investigating the incident, sources told PTI on Sunday.

Spicejet, however, said there was a brief delay in the arrival of coaches, and once the buses came, all the passengers, including those who had started walking, travelled on them from the tarmac to the terminal building.

“Despite repeated requests from our staff, a few passengers started walking towards the terminal. They had barely walked a few metres when the coaches arrived. All passengers, including those who had started walking, travelled on the coaches to the terminal building.

Passengers are not allowed to walk in Delhi airport’s tarmac area due to security concerns. There is a demarcated path on the tarmac for vehicles only.

How often do you see this happening at T3 of the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi? @flyspicejet kept up cooked up for 45 minutes after announcing “early arrival” of 6 mins at 11:24pm on the SG 8108 Hyd-Delhi. They parked the flight really far away with no buses. pic.twitter.com/sgkR9gXs3Y

— Lasya Nadimpally (@nlasya) August 6, 2022

Therefore, the airlines use buses to take passengers from terminal to aircraft or vice versa using the demarcated path.

Currently, SpiceJet is operating not more than 50 percent of its flights as per the orders of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

In July, the regulator imposed a curb on the airline’s flights for a period of eight weeks as its planes were involved in several technical malfunction incidents.

SpiceJet’s Hyderabad-Delhi flight—which had 186 passengers on board—landed at its destination at around 11.24 PM on Saturday, sources told PTI.

One bus came immediately and took a section of the passengers to terminal 3, they said.

The rest of the passengers waited for about 45 minutes, and as they didn’t see any bus coming for them, they started walking towards the terminal which was about 1.5 km away, they noted.

After these passengers walked for around 11 minutes on tarmac, a bus came at around 12.20 PM to take them to the terminal, they said.

When asked about this incident, SpiceJet said in a statement: “The information that passengers of SpiceJet flight Hyderabad-Delhi on 6th August were forced to walk towards the terminal on foot is wrong and is denied.

“There was a brief delay in the arrival of coaches to ferry the passengers from the tarmac to the terminal building.”

“Despite repeated requests from our staff, a few passengers started walking towards the terminal. They had barely walked a few metres when the coaches arrived. All passengers, including those who had started walking, travelled on the coaches to the terminal building,” the airline mentioned.

This is the latest in a series of controversies to hit the budget carrier. Several SpiceJet flights have been hit by technical glitches in the past few months.

On July 12, SpiceJet's Dubai-Madurai flight was delayed after the Boeing B737 Max aircraft’s nose wheel malfunctioned.   This was at least the ninth incident of technical malfunction in a SpiceJet aircraft in a span of 24 days.

9 mishaps in 24 days

On 6 July, the DGCA issued a show-cause notice to SpiceJet following several incidents of technical malfunction in its aircraft. The aviation regulator said the budget carrier had “failed” to establish safe, efficient and reliable air services.

On 5 July, a SpiceJet aircraft flying from  Kandla in Gujarat to Mumbai in Maharashtra made a priority landing in Mumbai on Tuesday after suffering a crack on its outer windshield midair.

This happened on the same day a Delhi to Dubai SpiceJet flight was forced to make an  unscheduled landing in Pakistan's Karachi city due to a fuel indicator malfunction.

This was also not the first time multiple SpiceJet flights were hit by a snag on the same day. On 19 June, a SpiceJet Patna-Delhi flight made an emergency landing soon after take-off due to an engine fire because of a bird hit.

On the same day, a flight Jabalpur-bound flight had to return to Delhi due to cabin pressurisation issues.

With inputs from PTI

Read all the Latest News, Trending News,  Cricket News, Bollywood News,
India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.