Travel plans go for a toss as flyers find it hard to make it to airport

PUNE: The travel sector reeled under pressure on Wednesday as flyers, especially corporate clients, had to cancel their travel plans as they could not make it to the airport in the absence of road transport.
Not only bus services to Mumbai and other cities across the state came to a halt and passengers demanding for a refund, those returning from abroad after New Year celebrations found themselves stranded at the Mumbai airport indefinitely.

Boutique owner Preeti Bhutada had to face massive losses as she had to cancel her plan to travel from Latur to Pune and then to Surat to purchase goods for her clients ahead of Makar Sankranti, which falls on January 14.

Santosh Gupta of Shree Vinayak Holidays, a travel agency, said, "Our travellers who returned to Mumbai from Bali are stranded there since Tuesday. Not only are they wary of travelling back to Pune, but local car rental companies were unable to give us vehicles to pick them up from the Mumbai airport. We have now booked flight tickets for them on Thursday." But, at Rs 8,000 per passenger, the Mumbai-Pune flight tickets are not cheap, he added.

A passenger who returned from Bali said, "I couldn't go to work for two days and now add Thursday to it and it will be the third day of extended leave from office. We have booked a hotel room in Mumbai as we wait for our flight on Thursday. My daughter has not been keeping well, but we have not been able to take her to the doctor as we feel it's not safe to step out of the hotel."

Kedar Kasaar of K K Travels, which mainly caters to passengers travelling to Mumbai airport, said, "We had 60% cancellations on Wednesday because of the bandh. Those who did go to Mumbai, had to return from Vashi."

Shaishav Parekh, secretary, Travel Agents Association of India, Pune, said many corporate tourists heading to other destinations from Pune could not reach the airport. "Jet Airways, Vistara and Air India have waived off cancellation charges for those travelling from Mumbai and Pune," he added.

Mehboob Shaikh, treasurer, Travel Agents Association of India, Pune, and director, Travel Elect Private Limited, said several passengers missed their flights in Pune, Aurangabad, and Mumbai.