Pune to Delhi via Amritsar, flyers face 14-hour ordeal

Pune: More than 100 passengers travelling from the city to Delhi on an IndiGo (6E-2278) flight were stranded for over 14 hours in Amritsar on Sunday because of flight diversion prompted by inclement weather in the national capital. Ashish Singh, an advocate, who was on his way to Delhi, told TOI that the flight was to take-off from Pune at around 11.05pm on Saturday and land in Delhi by 1.20am on Sunday. "We completed the check-in and were about to board when we got the message that the flight had been delayed and would now fly at 11.55pm. It was when the hassle started."Later, the flight took off for Delhi but didn't land at the IGI airport. "The flight circled around the airport for sometime and it was announced the the flight has been diverted to Amritsar. Had it landed in any airport near Delhi, passengers could have reached Delhi with much ease. It didn't happen. We landed in Amritsar at around 3am. We kept sitting in the aircraft for 2 hours without any information. The cabin crew kept assuring flyers that the flight will take off for Delhi soon but it didn't happen for two hours," the flyer said.He said we were then made to deboard the aircraft at around 5am. "At Amritsar airport, we saw a heavy crowd and soon realized that more flights were also been diverted to Amritsar. The Amritsar airport is small with limited resources and infrastructure. Flyers faced a lot of problems. We were asked to take our luggage from the baggage belt and the whole thing took an additional 2.5 hours," Singh said.He added that in Amritsar, there was chaos everywhere. "At the airport, just one IndiGo staffer was present and she wasn't able to provide any information. Our flight crew had already left. Some flyers stepped out and took an alternative mode of transport to reach Delhi," he told TOI.Ashutosh Singh, who was travelling on another IndiGo flight to Delhi, wrote on X, "Stranded at Amritsar airport since 3am. Delayed due to weather. But we were rebooked and now delayed again. More than 12 hours into this ordeal without a clear end at sight."While an official statement from the airline was awaited, sources said bad weather in Delhi and its consequential effects had delayed the flights. "The flight from Pune took off for Delhi at around 1.12pm on Sunday. The weather followed by the flight duty time limitations affected the flight," an airline source told TOI.Singh however said the flight had taken off from Amritsar at 2pm and landed in Delhi at 3.30pm. "It was a complete nightmare and torture. Passengers cannot be treated like this," Singh told TOI.