Nagpur: With 11 flights cancelled by evening, nearly half of the aircraft fleet operating from Nagpur was grounded due to the IndiGo Airlines crisis on Thursday. Fares of other carriers soared at the same time. Another carrier operating from Nagpur was charging Rs 22,000 for a ticket to Mumbai or Delhi for economy class — almost equal to business class rates. In some centres, it was as much as Rs 50,000 per person, with the earliest ticket not available before December 6. At the IndiGo Airlines counter, passengers only received uncertain replies on ticket availability in coming days. Only five flights took off from Nagpur on Thursday till 9pm.The cancelled flights included a plane bound for Pune from Kolkata, which was diverted to Nagpur midday, only to later scrap the journey. There were 162 persons aboard. This was not a typical emergency diversion from a technical snag or a medical emergency with a passenger, said sources. “The airlines simply said it was an operational reason,” said a source. It was learnt there was no parking bay available at Pune airport, which was already full with cancelled flights. This led to the flight being diverted, and the journey was truncated, said a source in the airport management.By 9 pm, as many as 11 flights of IndiGo Airlines were cancelled, with many running inordinately delayed. The flights that were cancelled connected the city with Pune, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Goa. Most of these run on a to-and-fro basis, so even arrivals were affected. IndiGo is the largest player at the Nagpur airport, operating 22 flights. There are chances that more flights may be cancelled by midnight, said an employee. The signboard at the departure gate at 8:30pm displayed only the status of a lone flight.“Don’t ask for tickets for at least a week,” said an executive at the booking counter. “Even we are not sure if there would be any available. Many flights that are running delayed are eventually being cancelled.”An angry Devendra Singh and his friend Mukul Soni said they purchased a ticket, barely a couple of hours ago, only to find out that flights had been cancelled. “I purchased the ticket to Delhi right from the airline’s portal at 7pm for a flight scheduled for 9pm. Why should they sell tickets if the flights were cancelled?” said Devendra. His friend, Mukul, also purchased a ticket around the same time from an aggregator’s portal.The Wakharia family had to catch a flight to Tokyo from Delhi. Earlier, they had planned to fly to Delhi on Friday, but looking at the crisis, they preponed and booked tickets for Thursday, only for the plane to be cancelled. The family later booked a taxi to Delhi.“The crisis also left the ground staff overstretched. We have to report at a given time, but there’s no fixed schedule for return since two days. There’s too much work, handling cancellations and rescheduling. If DGCA wants pilots to have fixed hours, why not the ground staff,” asked one of them.
