The Hindu Business Line : Passengers upset over disruption in Air Deccan flights

DISRUPTION in the flight schedule of the low-cost Air Deccan off Coimbatore for two consecutive days has piqued the passengers who had booked tickets on the flights.

While passengers who had booked for Chennai on the private airline's Coimbatore-Chennai flight today had to suffer two hours delay, the passengers who had booked on the Coimbatore-Mumbai flight on Sunday had to abandon their journey as the airline's scheduled Mumbai flight from here was cancelled suddenly on technical reasons, sources in the Peelamedu civil airport said.

According to the sources, the Chennai-Coimbatore-Chennai daily flight which landed here this morning was diverted to Bangalore as the earlier flight from Bangalore to Coimbatore scheduled to arrive here at 6.15 a.m. failed to turn up. The diversion of the flight to Bangalore was objected to by the passengers who had booked their journey to Chennai, the sources said.

The Chennai-Coimbatore flight which arrived around 0715 hours was diverted to Bangalore and the flight reached here from Bangalore around 0920 hrs. It later left for Chennai at 0945hrs forcing a two-hour delay for the Chennai-bound passengers.

When contacted, the Air Deccan's ground staff at the Peelamedu airport said they had no information and added only their Chennai office could respond.

Some of the irate passengers who telephoned this correspondent from the airport said their agony was not as much on the delay of the flight as the uncertainty it caused because the personnel deployed on the airline's booking counters at the local airport were not able to help the passengers detained at the airport or give any information to them on the delay or when the flight was expected to arrive etc.

Mr Murali, a business executive employed in a US-based MNC and scheduled to take a flight to Malaysia from Chennai this afternoon said that he chose to travel by the particular flight not due to the `low fare' but because of the `convenient timing'.