Trouble at T3 continues; Jet, Kingfisher shifting there

The airline tried to streamline its operations at T3 on the third day with only 14 domestic flights, out of a total of 54 for the day, getting delayed.

"These flights were delayed as aircraft from other cities came late. In order to maintain the schedule, one flight to Mumbai (IC 602) was cancelled," an airline official said.
The national carrier shifted its domestic operations from terminal 1A to swanky new terminal 3 from the midnight of November 10-11.

But the operations were severely affected due to shortage of ground handling staff and cabin crew, which led to cancellations and inordinate delays of flights by upto 10 hours.
The airline entered into a ground handling pact with Singapore Airport Terminal Services (SATS) and a joint venture AISATS was formed for ground handling at several metro airports.

Sources said AISATS failed to provide the staff as a result of which the national carrier had to fly in over 100 employees from across the country to manage the operations at T3.

But the enormity of terminal turned out to be the hindrance for them, as they were neither familiar nor they were trained to handle the new systems installed there.
Also, their flights were delayed due to lack of cabin crew, who many a time complained about being stuck in traffic jam at Mahipalpur crossing on the National Highway-8, from where the road for T3 begins.

The situation is likely become worse when two other full service carriers, Jet Airways and Kingfisher, shifts their operations from T1D to T3 from tonight.

"It is likely to be more chaotic as passengers would find it difficult to negotiate with one of the world's biggest terminals," an airport official said.The airlines have asked their passengers to report two hours before the scheduled departure of their flight in order to manage the situation.

Meanwhile, sudden thunderstorm and heavy rains today affected the flight operations at the IGI airport forcing the air traffic control to divert 17 incoming aircraft to nearby airports.Four international and 13 domestic flights were diverted to Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Dehradun, Chandigarh, Nagpur, Srinagar and Lucknow