Passengers stranded at BIA

Local taxi drivers make a killing

Close to 80 percent of airport taxis services remained out of service, except for a brief period of two hours during the day, leaving arriving passengers in the lurch. Airport taxi service officials said only 20 percent of the taxis were plying from BIA to the City centre and back on Monday. Arriving passengers were seen waiting in queues that were as long as half a km at the taxi lounge to take a cab to their respective destinations.

Some local and small taxi operators even made a killing by charging abnormally high fares for drop from BIA to the City centre.

Services of the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) to the BIA, the Vayu Vajra Volvo services were withdrawn as a precautionary measure, with almost no hope for passengers.

Sources at the airport said there were 33 cancellations - 16 departures and 17 arrivals. “Some flights were also delayed while others had to be diverted. An Indigo flight from Bangalore-Kolkata-Patna, flew direct to Patna, skipping Kolkata as the situation there was tense. Another airline, from Jet Airways, flying Bangalore to Mumbai was scheduled to depart at 9.15 am, but left BIA only at 1.30 pm,” said the source.

Few desperate passengers were also seen glued to the live-flight information kiosks, hoping that normalcy in flight operations would resume soon.

AI operations normal

National carrier Air India issued a release claiming complete normalcy in its operations at its all India network. “Of the total number of 137 domestic flights scheduled to depart from the six metros till 6 pm, 136 flights were operated on schedule.”

“The airline had planned 181 domestic departures in all, throughout the day. Air India was the only airline to operate all scheduled flights from Kolkata” stated the release.