Heavy rain triggers flight diversions, cancellations

Torrential downpour and poor visibility triggered diversion and cancellation of several flights at the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) on Monday evening.

By 10.30 pm, the schedules of at least eight flights were severely affected, spoiling the plans of hundreds of passengers.

A Spicejet flight from Delhi hovered above the airport for about an hour before being diverted to Chennai.

Among the passengers was Akanksha Kapadia, who said, “The flight was supposed to land at KIA at 7 pm, but because of bad weather it was in the air for over an hour. We were told that fuel was getting over and thus the plane was taken to Chennai airport for refuelling. The plane took off from Chennai for Bangalore at 9.30 pm.”

An Air India flight from Delhi, scheduled to touch down at KIA at 7.30 pm, had a similar problem and was diverted to Hyderabad.

With the runway wet and air traffic control not wanting to take chances, KIA relayed information to the incoming flights to approach Chennai, Coimbatore and Hyderabad for landing.

The ATC decided that it would divert flights, if weather conditions with gusty winds and rain persisted.

Airport sources said the Indigo flight to Kolkata (6E378) took off two hours and 10 minutes late.

Another flight of the same airline to Kolkata (6E277) was 55 minutes late to take off. It was originally scheduled to depart at 7.05 pm.

A third Indigo flight to Delhi (6E114) recorded a 20-minute delay.

Visibility had dropped to such low levels that the Spicejet flight to Chennai (SG3426) was cancelled.

The airline’s flight to Vishakhapatnam (SG9272) was to take off at 7.30 pm. It eventually departed at 10 pm, a delay of two hours, 30 minutes.

Jet Airways too had a delay problem with its flight to Coimbatore (9W2649). The flight left KIA at 8.35 pm, a delay of 45 minutes.

Another Jet flight from Mumbai was diverted to Coimbatore, while the Indigo flight from Thiruvananthapuram was diverted to Chennai.