THE LONG HAUL

It was not a pleasant first day of the year for the passengers of Jet Airways flight 9W-907. While they boarded the Delhi-Kolkata flight on time at 10 AM, the aircraft could only take off five hours later. “It was a harrowing experience to wait inside the aircraft for five hours, there were children, elderly people and since the aircraft was on the ground we were not being allowed to use the lavatory,” said Smriti Mantri, a passenger on the flight.

With the fog in north India severely disrupting the airline’s schedule, one of the biggest irritants for flyers has been to wait endlessly inside the aircraft, waiting for it to fly. Planes to de-board passengers in case of delay? The way aviation systems currently work in India, aircraft enter the take-off queue on a first-come-firstserved basis. The aircraft gets a departure sequence only when it has closed its door after boarding passengers. “Once I close the doors, I am in queue. During extreme foggy days when schedules have been disrupted, there can be 100 planes in the queue. if I return to the gate, I lose the sequence and delay my passengers even more,” said the commander of a whichmakede-boardingofpassengers private airline. time consuming; a cutthroatbusinesswhichforcesairlines Airline officials say there needs to be a change in this to jam multiple flights in a process. “The departure thintimeslot; andinfrastructure sequence number should be crunch at airports. given based on the scheduled

First, why are airlines reluctant time of departure and not Airlines lose sequence in take-off line if passengers are deplaned, leading to further delay

CISF rules force airlines to make passenger go through security check again if they are disembarked

Capacity constraints at airports means there is no space to hold the passengers who have disembarked

pushed back from the gate, only to sit on the runway for what seemed an eternity. So why doesn’t the airline allow passengers to deplane during such a delay? Blame it on multiple factors such as complicated rules boarding status. If an airline misses the sequence once fog clears, put them at the bottom of the list,” says an executive at a private airline.

Second, even if the passengers are disembarked, they have to go back into the arrival terminal and pass again through the security enclosure as the CISF has denied permission for reverse entry. Airlines don’t like to take that pain. “It takes a lot of time again forcing further delay. Why should the passenger have to undergo security again? They should wait directly at the gate andboardagainthroughtheaerobridge or bus,” the airline executive says. CISF boss O P Singh saidreverseentryforpassengers can cause a security breach.

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