Crystal ball service

The instruction of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation to airlines to inform all passengers of flight delays well in advance is being taken far more seriously than the DGCA itself would have imagined. So a low-cost carrier sent SMS messages to all its passengers planning to fly from Bangalore to Delhi on March 13 almost nine days in advance on March 4. The flight, said the message, would be delayed by an hour on March 13. The caution left passengers wondering whether the airline had managed to forecast delays so many days ahead of schedule or whether it was just preparing them for the inevitable delays that hound almost every flight in the country now.