Runway Upgrade Backfires: Delhi Airport Faces Travel Turmoil, CM Omar Abdullah Among Stranded

National News: Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi saw unprecedented chaos in the operation of flights on Sunday, when 68% of the total 1300 flights were delayed by the scheduled time. This affected thousands of passengers, who had to wait at the terminal for hours. Surprisingly, this crisis could have been postponed in advance, because the runway upgrade that caused this disturbance was given to the airlines four months ago. Despite this, expected changes were not made in the schedule of flights.

Passenger suffering due to heavy delay of flights

According to flight tracking service flightradar24, the departure (departure) of 501 flights and the arrival of 384 flights delayed till 11:30 pm on Sunday night. This delay was an hour in the case of departure and 75 minutes in Arrival. On an average 1300 flights operate at Delhi Airport on normal days, the figure of delay in 68% flights is very large.

Runway upgrade became a big reason

Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), a company operating Delhi Airport, clarified that the disruption was due to the upgrade upgrade and sudden change in the wind direction. According to DIAL, the airlines were informed about this possible disruption four months ago so that they could change their schedule. But the airlines either made very little changes or not at all.

Questions raised on poor planning and communication gap

DIAL said that there was a lack of proper plans and dialogues for the operation of flights during the runway upgrade. During this period, one of the four runways of the airport was closed for repair work. In addition, the unusual change in the direction of the wind made the situation more complicated.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah also became a victim

VIP passengers as well as VIP passengers were not untouched by this chaos. Chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir expressed his frustration on social media by writing that jammu , "we were diverted to Jaipur and I am breathing fresh air standing on the stairs of aircraft at one o'clock at night .don't know when you will leave from here now". His remarks went viral and once again exposed the management lapse at Delhi Airport.

What should have been preparations?

Experts believe that if the airlines had reshuffled the time of flights on the basis of advance information given by DIAL, this level of chaos could have been avoided. It is necessary to prioritize the convenience of passengers during major functions like runway upgrade, and for this it is mandatory to coordinate between airlines, ATC, and airport management.

Now what next?

Currently, DIAL has said that it is preparing a new plan with all the stakeholders, so that the runway upgrade can be resumed without affecting the passengers. Along with this, a special task force is also expected to be formed to improve the operation of flights and to avoid such situation in future.

The DIAL also admitted that the flight schedule was not made proper changes to deal with the situation, causing airport management, air traffic control (ATC) and other stakeholders to face extraordinary pressure. As a result, the runway upgrade work is currently temporarily postponed.