“This is unacceptable”: Distress at Amritsar Airport as IndiGo Pune flight delay leaves passengers stranded for hours amid runway chaos

Nearby, three women from Chennai who were neighbours were also waiting to board the same flight. They had been at the airport for over three hours. “We have a connecting flight from Pune to Chennai, which we are now going to miss,” said Archana Punugu. “We are changing our flight to Delhi now from here and then taking another one to Chennai. But we were to reach Chennai by early morning, now it will be afternoon. This is unacceptable”

The Amritsar–Pune IndiGo flight, scheduled to depart at 11.50 pm on Thursday, finally took off at around 3.50 am on Friday. It landed in Pune at 5.50 am, nearly four hours after its scheduled arrival time of 1.50 am, leaving passengers awake through the night as they waited to board and reach their destination.

According to an IndiGo source at the airport, the disruption began when an IndiGo flight from Sharjah to Amritsar was denied landing clearance by Air Traffic Control because of a runway issue. The runway was temporarily closed, and a flight scheduled to operate from Amritsar to Mumbai was diverted to Chandigarh.

Lack of basic arrangements

About an hour later, another aircraft was arranged to carry the Mumbai-bound passengers from Amritsar. However, passengers travelling to Pune alleged that the aircraft originally scheduled for their sector was used instead for the Mumbai flight. They claimed that, as a result, Pune-bound passengers were made to wait for the delayed Sharjah flight to land before they could operate their service.

The Sharjah flight landed in Amritsar at around 3 am Friday, after which Pune passengers were finally allowed to board — nearly four hours after the scheduled departure time.

Another passenger questioned the decision to prioritise the Mumbai sector. “One can understand the runway issue, but why make Pune passengers suffer just to make way for the Mumbai sector?” he asked.

Divyam Mehra, who was travelling from Amritsar to Goa via Pune, said the delay meant he would miss his connecting flight scheduled for 5.20 am. “If we depart at 3 am, there is no way I can make it for the connecting flight. I have bookings in Goa plus return tickets for February 10, which effectively now gives me just three days there,” he said.

“There are about 30 passengers on this flight, taking the connecting flight to Goa. We are hoping the airlines will delay that flight too. But, of course, it means inconvenience to the Pune passengers then.”

Punugu also criticised the lack of basic arrangements for stranded passengers during the early morning hours. “There are so many infants and senior citizens on the flight, plus a group going to Pune for the funeral of a relative. All this has added to their trauma,” she said.

While IndiGo did not issue any official statement regarding the flight delays and diversions, when contacted by The Indian Express, a source said the disruptions were due to operational reasons beyond the airline’s control.