Passengers stuck in plane after landing

“We were stuck inside the aircraft at the international bay. We were not even given water to drink,” said S Murugan,44,who owns a shipping company in Madurai,

An AI spokesperson said,“The parking bay is being allocated in gaps of 45 minutes to an hour because of the huge congestion at the airport.”

In the morning,another aircraft had jammed the runway after it had returned shortly after takeoff. Gulf Air flight GF 057 from Mumbai to Bahrain left at 10.32 am,had a technical issue and landed again at 11.24 am. The Airbus A320 was towed away to a bay and jammed the runway for over 20 minutes. The runway was cleared at 11.53 am.

Low visibility delayed flights,both ways,by 15 minutes to two hours. Nine private flights were cancelled as airlines combined them with others. By evening,visibility had improved and the delay went down to 15 minutes.