IndiGo jet’s tyre burst sparks anger, chaos
Mishap stranded thousands of fliers at airports across India
An IndiGo aircraft tyreburst incident occurred on Wednesday night on the runway of the Hyderabad airport, leaving thousands stranded in different airports across the country as well as causing pandemonium at the Hyderabad Airport.
IndiGo airlines and others had to cancel many of their flights early on Thursday morning due to runway restrictions. Passengers alleged that though the airlines’ are insured for these kinds of contingencies, they did not provide accommodation for all the stranded passengers, but did so only for frequent flyers.
Additionally, passengers of other flights were not informed either about the incident or the cancellation of flights till after they had already checkedin. The airport appeared very chaotic on late on Wednesday night as angry passengers were seen shouting and yelling at the various airlines’ staff due to the inconvenience caused.
When passengers demanded to know the status of their flights, they were told that the flights were cancelled due to IndiGo’s operational reasons. “I’ve been stuck at the airport since Wednesday night with no information being provided about my substitute flight to Bengaluru. Though I’ve asked for a refund I haven’t received anything so far,” said Mr Gautam.
Mr Aditya, another stranded passenger scheduled to fly out from Hyderabad to Mumbai said, “I landed in Hyderabad at 8 pm from Visakhapatnam on Wednesday night and my flight was scheduled at 11:45 pm to Mumbai. Only after I arrived at gate one was I told that the flight had been postponed to 12:45 am. Later, it was further pushed to 2 am.”
Sunitha Simon, a resident of Hyderabad who was travelling from Delhi said, “I was flying from Delhi and my flight was supposed to land at Hyderabad at 10 pm, but due to the tyre-burst incident the flight was diverted to Bengaluru airport instead. We were stranded at Bengaluru till 3 am. We were not allowed to deboard. When we reached Hyderabad at 4 am it was completely crowded and there were no cabs available. It’s strange that because of a single tyre burst thousands were stranded at different airports. Our airports could not even handle one such incident and we talk about digital India.”