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Deepavali rush: Fliers unhappy as airfare triples
Thanks to airline companies trying to cash in on the festive rush, fares of domestic flights have shot up to almost thrice their original numbers, and this is a major inconvenience, claim passengers from the city.
By
migrator
migrator
Chennai
Since the train and bus tickets are unavailable because of advance bookings, people trying to rush to their hometowns in the last hour with left with hardly any option but to try and fly, creating a huge demand for the tickets. Accordingly, the ticket prices also shot up.
Chennai-Madurai flight fare that costs around Rs 3,500 usually was being sold for Rs19,000, said sources.
Explaining the situation, airport officials said that most of the flights were full and only business class tickets were available. Hence, the high price for the tickets. “Flights, especially those to Madurai, Trichy, Tuticorin and Salem are running packed,” an airport official said.
Airline officials also said that the fares were higher as people were trying to book tickets in the last minute. “If they had booked earlier, they would have gotten tickets at regular rates,” a staffer at a private airliner said. Passengers, however, claimed that if that it would have been good if the airline companies operated special flights on low fares during the festival as is followed by other modes of transportation.
Indigo pilot sends distress call, lands safely in Chennai
Indigo pilot sends distress call, lands safely in Chennai
An IndiGo aircraft with 47 passengers suffered a mid-air shut down of one of its engines, forcing it to make an emergency landing at the airport here, a DGCA official said Monday.
The city-bound flight of the budget carrier from Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh landed under full emergency conditions Sunday evening and all passengers disembarked safely, airport authorities said. “There was loss of oil in the one of the engines which led to its mid-air failure and the subsequent emergency landing of the plane,” the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) official said.
“Worse, despite loss of oil, the pilot chose to do a go-around instead of landing directly,” the official said, adding the aviation regulator has begun its probe into the incident. When contacted, IndiGo sought to downplay the incident, terming it a “technical glitch”.
“IndiGo flight 6E7123 which was operating (on November 4), on Rajahmundry Chennai route suffered a technical glitch in one of its engines just before landing at Chennai”, an IndiGo spokesperson said in a statement. The aircraft landed safely, it added.
On Friday, another IndiGo aircraft had been involved in a possible air mishap after an IndiGo Airbus A320 Neo, flying from Lucknow to Kolkata, was forced to return to Lucknow following an issue with the aircraft’s engine. The engines of IndiGo and GoAir A320 Neos are powered by Pratt and Whitney (PW), which claimed on Friday that a bird-hit may have caused the engine trouble.
SpiceJet Kolkata-bound flight delayed by 7 hours
The departure of a Chennai-Kolkata SpiceJet flight was delayed up to seven hours on Sunday causing severe grievance to passengers. The airline officials said the delay occurred as the flight, which had to return from Kolkata, did not arrive.
The Spice Jet flight was scheduled to depart from Chennai at 5.30 pm on Sunday. Consequently, 158 passengers arrived at 4 pm and waited to board the flight after finishing the checkups airline officials announced the flight will be delayed for an hour and will take off at 6.30 pm.
Sources said that most of the passengers were from West Bengal and were travelling to their hometown to celebrate Kali Pooja.
The flight, however, did not take off in the given hour as passengers were informed of further delay. When this continued until 10 pm, agitated passengers stormed the Spice Jet counters and began arguing with the officials creating a tense situation at the terminal. The airline staff explained the reason for the delay and eventually the flight took around 12.30 am, said to airport officials.
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