Flight information system at airport goes blank

A spokesperson from the Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) confirmed that the FIDS was out of order but the fault has been rectified and the system has been functioning normally since Saturday morning. “There was a network problem with the system which has been now rectified,” he said,stating that possibly the display went blank because the network cable was hampered.

In October 2008,FIDS at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport had been out of order for the three days in a row and passengers were left without any outlet of information at the airport. As it was a similar case last night,the main confusion is attributed to the fact that the scheduled time of arrival and the expected time of arrival are actually quite different,and often leave passengers and visitors quite clueless about flight arrivals and departures. “While domestic departures from the Mumbai airport are lesser in the later part of the evening,domestic flight arrivals at the airport actually continue till 11 pm in the night and that could have caused problems to the visitors at the airport last night,” said a senior airport official.