Dubai-bound flyers stranded in Pune as flight delayed by over 7 hours

Pune:Nearly 50 passengers travelling to Dubai from the city were in a bind on Wednesday after their flight was delayed, allegedly without any information, for more than seven hours.Hadapsar resident Shravan Surase, who was going to the emirate to rejoin work, said the SpiceJet flight, which was scheduled to take off from Pune at 8.50pm on Wednesday, only departed around 4.40am on Thursday. It landed in Dubai at 7am on Thursday instead of the scheduled 11pm the previous night.A SpiceJet spokesperson was contacted, but an official response was awaited at the time of going to press."Ground staff told me that information about the delay was sent to flyers three hours prior to the flight. However, most of us flyers didn't receive any information from them. The flight had around 50-60 passengers only and practically all were going to rejoin work," Surase told TOI.He added: "I reached the airport around 6pm. After check-in and security check, I found out about the delay. No proper information was given and some flyers were told to either wait or cancel their travel and take a refund. Airline officials refused to help or take any responsibility."He alleged that some ground staff told flyers the delay was due to the West Asia conflict. However, that was wrong information as we found out that our flight was delayed because the incoming flight from Delhi was late, he said. "For the whole night, we were sitting in the airport without any information or refreshments except for one bottle of water," Surase added."The airline should compensate all flyers for the loss of time and lack of information."Meanwhile, Pune airport officials said that with only one regular flight to Dubai operational at present and with fewer flyers because of the conflict, cargo movements on the flight have increased. "Earlier, in this flight, roughly around 500kg-600kg of cargo used to go. Now, we are able to send around 5-6 metric tonnes (MT) of cargo. Other regular flights to the UAE are yet to resume," a senior airport official said.