The Hindu : 12-hour ordeal for air passengers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Dec 28, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad

12-hour ordeal for air passengers

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD Dec. 27. Passengers bound for Chicago and New York via Mumbai on an Air India flight from the city have been literally grounded for the last 12 hours at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, at Begumpet. Last heard, they were still holed up in the airport awaiting deliverance from the ordeal while Air India officials dithered.

While airport officials attributed the problem to long delays and flight schedules going haywire, airline officials were not available for comment. The stranded passengers were understandably upset.

"We have been confined to the inner lounge like prisoners without food or water for hours together for the simple reason that we have been given the boarding passes. Neither could we come out into the lobby nor our relatives could bring us anything to eat. This has been a real nightmare," said the angry passengers.

"Worse still, Air India officials would not tell us whether the flight would take off or not," they gave vent to their ire. Heated arguments became the order of the day as the 190 odd passengers cornered the Air India and airport officials, but with very little success in eliciting the big answer - whether the flight will take off?

In fact, their ordeal started much before. "We were supposed to leave Hyderabad in the early hours of December 25, but officials told us that the scheduled flight, which was supposed to arrive from Mumbai to Hyderabad to accommodate us, did not.

They reconfirmed our tickets for the next day, but the same drama unfolded. They said there would be a second flight, but there was none," fumed a passenger bound for Chicago.

"Again, the officials asked us to come back the next day (the early hours of December 27) after reconfirming our tickets. And here we are, holed up in this pigeonhole without basic facilities and more importantly, without a clue about our departure," he said.

"We got in waiting in a two-hour long queue to complete the check-in formalities. The flight was to have left at 5.30 a.m., but the officials kept changing the departure time from 6.15 a.m. to 8 a.m. and then to 10 a.m.," a couple pointed out with a resigned air.

"First they attributed it to technical problems, then the fog and now they do not know if the flight would take off at all. There is complete lack of respect and more importantly, communication and something called customer service. This has been the most frustrating experience of my entire travelling life," said another passenger wryly.

It was also an endless wait for international students, housewives and children, parents bound for the US to visit their wards and a couple of foreigners. "Can't you see our distraught faces? No one is responding to our pleas and little kids had to go without food and milk. Is this how you treat your passengers," a woman passenger was heard shouting at the officials. Lunch was provided to them but around 2 p.m.

"I ended up missing three days of work and Christmas dinner," Mr. Rajashekar shrugged. Unable to bear the agonising wait anymore, he cancelled his ticket and walked out of the airport in disgust. But, not everyone was that lucky. The wait continued for them, as there was no other way out for them.

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