Eighteen-hour ordeal for Jetlite passengers

Jetlite flight (S2-256) from Kochi, with Sreedharan and 100 other passengers, was scheduled to depart at 4.45 pm last evening but it took-off for Delhi around 6.30 pm after a delay of two hours and landed around 2.30 pm on Wednesday after the flight was diverted to Ahmedabad.

“As the plane reached Delhi around 11 pm on Tuesday night, the IGI airport was enveloped in dense fog and visibility had dropped to 50 metres. The pilot announced that the flight was being diverted to Ahmedabad,” said Ramesh Kumar, a passenger of the flight.

The aircraft had to hover for some time before it finally landed around midnight at Ahmedabad.

“After landing, the passengers had to wait for about an hour inside the aircraft as the airline took some time to arrange the stepladder and buses for us to disembark,” Kumar said, claiming that some passengers lost their baggages in the chaos. The airline provided accommodation to the passengers around 3 am after they protested, he claimed. Around 6 am, airline officials informed the passengers to be ready by 8 am on Wednesday.

“We boarded the flight around 10 am and it finally took off for Delhi around 11.30 am. Generally, the duration of Ahmedabad-Delhi flight is just one-and-a-half hour but it took around three hours for the flight to reach Delhi and we landed around 2.30 pm,” Kumar said.