Just fliers,no luggage

“After landing in Coimbatore the captain casually announced that the passengers’ check-in baggage was not loaded and no other explanations were given to us,” said Jagannathan. “There were old people who had left their medicines and prescriptions in their check-in baggage but the airline representatives were very rude in answering the passengers,” he added.

“An airplane’s capacity to take off with stipulated payloads depends on various conditions. On Tuesday afternoon the tailwinds were strong,runway length was shortened and temperatures were high. They are all negatives as far as aircraft operations are concerned,” said a senior Jet Airways pilot. “However the airline could have informed passengers of the conditions beforehand,” the pilot added.

“All my medicines and injections were in my check-in baggage. I even had to buy night-wear,” said V Manickam,another passenger. Manickam also said that the airline didn’t bother to inform passengers in advance.

The same afternoon Kingfisher Airlines offloaded an average of 1,000 kg of passenger baggage from four of its flights,according to a Kingfisher official.

“Whatever the case is the passengers should be informed by the airlines. Perhaps they should start advising passengers not to carry a lot of luggage on Tuesdays,” said an airport official.

“Flight S2 645 of Oct 27,2009,had payload restrictions due to reduced runway length available due to major civil work at Mumbai Airport coupled with tailwind conditions and high temperatures during mid-afternoon. As a consequent of this JetLite was compelled to offload checked-in baggage on this flight of some of their guests. This action was taken to reduce the weight of the aircraft and to operate the flight within its safe envelope. All baggage was returned to the respective guests by the next available flight,” said a spokesperson from JetLite.