Heavy rain affects flight operations at Chennai airport

According to airport officials, a number of international flights arriving from Frankfurt, Paris, Kuwait, Singapore and Hong Kong could not land at the Chennai airport and had to remain in the air for a long time until the runway was cleared and prepared for landing. 

“A Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Chennai carrying 368 passengers that was scheduled to arrive in Chennai had to diverted to Bengaluru due to bad weather.  The flight arrived here a few hours later after the strong winds and rain subsided,” an airport official said. After the weather cleared, all these diverted and delayed international flights landed one after another at the airport, the officials said.  

Similarly, several outbound international flights could not take off at the scheduled time and were delayed by at least two hours. 

Airport officials said that the delay in arrival and departure of these flights were communicated to the passengers as well as to their kin waiting at the airport causing confusion. 

Air passengers who arrived at the airport on time to board their international flights were also not properly informed of the delay in the flights. “This led to a lot of confusion and chaos at the airport through Saturday night,” said the official. The situation returned to normal by Sunday morning.