
AHMEDABAD, Sept 14: Indian Airlines officials said the passengers who missed the Ahmedabad-Delhi single-landing flight on Sunday were given an option to be flown by the evening flight, but they insisted on making an attempt to board the afternoon flight.
K S Reddy, IA station manager Ahmedabad, said the Delhi-Ahmedabad-Vadodara-Delhi flight was grounded here soon after coming from Delhi at about 7.50 a.m. before departing for Vadodara developing some technical snags. Following this, the passengers to Vadodara were sent by road.
He said initially it appeared that the aircraft would be grounded, but the headquarters cleared it for one-landing to Delhi with the instructions that the flight should not take off from Ahmedabad after 2 p.m. due to flight duty time limitations of the crew.
This was conveyed to the Vadodara office with suggestions that the Vadodara-Delhi passengers should be brought to Ahmedabad from where they would take the scheduled evening flight to Delhi.
Reddy was of opinion that had the passengers in Vadodara hurried up, they could have got the 2 p.m. flight, but by the time they could be brought from different hotels in Vadodara and start off for Ahmedabad, it was already past noon and there were bleak chances of their making it on time as the road between Vadodara and Ahmedabad is not good.
As expected, the passengers reached around 3.30 p.m. and the plane had already left at 2 p.m. He said there was no point in waiting for the passengers as if the the plane had not left by 2 p.m. a fresh set of crew would have to be brought from Delhi which could have reached there only in the evening. Therefore, he said, it was decided to let the flight take off and send the passengers by the evening flight which finally happened.