Fliers in Mumbai face delays due to fog in North

Many airlines have been facing consequential delays due to fog in North India. According to an official from the Mumbai air traffic control (ATC), because of the fog flights originating from Delhi, Jaipur, Lucknow, Varanasi, Amritsar have been late and that has led to consequential delays.

“As a result, the arrivals and departures are delayed at least by an hour at Mumbai airport,” he said. 

Jet Airways had to cancel four of its flights on Tuesday due to bad weather. The flights were Mumbai-Chandigarh-Mumbai, Delhi-Chandigarh-Delhi, Delhi-Udaipur-Delhi and Delhi-Brussels.  

On Tuesday afternoon a GoAir Mumbai-Jaipur flight got delayed by four hours as the aircraft that was on its way to Mumbai from Bangalore got delayed due to fog. This greatly inconvenienced the 165 passengers who alleged that the airline did not bother to intimate them. Sushil Kumar, 44, was in a hurry to reach Jaipur to attend his father-in-law’s funeral. “We were booked on the Mumbai-Jaipur GoAir flight G8 111 that was to leave at 2.50pm,” said Kumar. But when he reached Mumbai airport with his wife at 1.15pm the airline told them that the flight has been delayed for technical reasons. “If they knew that the flight is delayed why did they not send us an SMS,” he questioned.

The passengers came together and demanded their departure time. “After a lot of struggle we were told that the flight will leave at 6.38pm,” said Kumar.  

The spokesperson for GoAir, however, said: “Due to fog in Bangalore the aircraft started late and delayed the Mumbai-Jaipur flight. The passengers were sent SMSes about the delay and those who did not have mobile phones were informed on their alternative numbers.”