Flooded runway drowns out the long weekend

The long weekend, which began on Friday, was supposed to relieve passengers of stress, but 1,200 passengers had more of it as 14 domestic flights could not land at Goa’s Dabolim airport which was flooded by heavy rains.

The flights were diverted, cancelled or delayed, leading to passengers being stranded at several airports across the country. The runway at the Dabolim airport was closed from 1.30pm to 6pm following heavy rains.

The Goa trip of Manish Agarwal, 32, a finance executive, was ruined as his Air India flight from Mumbai (IC-865) did not take off from Santa Cruz airport at all. “Due to Gandhi Jayanti on Friday, I had a three-day-long weekend and had planned a Goa trip. But my 12.55pm flight did not leave Mumbai and I am sitting here trying to know the status of my  flight,” he said.

Air India’s two flights to Goa, IC-865 and IC-163, did not leave Mumbai, confirmed an AI spokesperson and added that their Bangalore-Goa-Dubai flight was also diverted to Mumbai.

Similarly three Jet Airways flights on the Mumbai-Goa route — 9W-475, 9W-2016 and Jetlite’s S2-107 — were also diverted to Bangalore. “Due to poor visibility and heavy rainfall, the flights had to be diverted to Bangalore. The passengers are at Bangalore airport and will be flown to Goa when the weather improves,” said Jet Airways’ spokesperson.

Kingfisher’s flight to Goa from Mumbai also did not take-off and the flight from Pune was also cancelled. Flights from Kozhikode and Delhi to Goa were also stopped and diverted respectively.