Monday, September 29, 2014

Fly AI, but at your own risk!

Pune: Taking an Air India flight out of Pune? Watch it. A technical glitch or a tyre burst could put you behind by 10- 15 hours. This is what the national carrier has been reduced to by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) with its refusal to restore the airline's store for its spares at the airport, forcing it to procure its requirement from other airports whenever emergencies arise. The past few years have seen about 50 correspondences from the airline, trying to wrest a storage space after AAI took over its existing facility in 2008, during renovation of the Lohegaon airport — a project that got done the next year.

On June 15, this year, 157 passengers flying in from Delhi had a narrow escape when a rear tyre burst just as the flight was landing at 9.30 pm. On the return journey, the flight's departure was scheduled at 10.30 pm. But it could not take off that night. Passengers were accommodated in hotels and the flight finally took off the next morning at 7.30 am. It was a nine hour delay but passengers on that flight at least got to their destination. However, passengers booked on flight IC849 to Delhi at 8.30 pm on December 27, 2013, were not so lucky.
30/-09/14 Sukirt Gumaste/Pune Mirror 
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