Hyderabad: About 200 Delhi-bound passengers including four children going for the Under-9 national chess championship were stranded at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport for eight hours on Sunday as their Spicejet flight was delayed.
The parents of the four children said that they came to the airport at around 5.30 am and were informed at 7.15 am that the flight would not take off due to technical problems.
Though the airline accommodated them in another flight that took off after 2 pm, their fears of missing a connecting train from Delhi to Jalandhar came true.
“Though we had a cab booked that took us from the airport to the railway station in Delhi, we missed the 4.30 pm train. Fortunately, we managed to get Tatkal tickets in a later train. All this has happened due to Spicejet delaying the flight,” said Ms Sree Vidya, mother of J.S.S. Sreekar, one of the four children going to Jalandhar for the national championships.
“We have to report by 8 am on Monday at the national championship venue. The performance of the children is likely to be affected as they are tired due to the eight-hour wait at the airport and the long travel,” she added.
Other passengers complained that the airline staff did not respond properly.
“We had booked tickets in May. The plane was supposed to take off at 8.40 am. Finally they arranged a flight that took off after 2 pm,” said Mr Prasad C., another passenger.
A Spicejet employee at RGIA said the flight was delayed due to technical problems. “All flights to Delhi were full. We tried to accommodate at least nine of them – the four children and their parents,” she said.
