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Jaipur: Five flights were diverted to Jaipur on Friday morning due to poor weather conditions in Lucknow and Chandigarh. Among these, a Jaipur-Lucknow flight was also diverted back to Jaipur after it couldn't land in Lucknow due to low visibility.
The flight diversions occurred between 7.20am and 8.40am on Friday, according to officials from Jaipur airport. The flights diverted to Jaipur included a Bengaluru-Lucknow flight, a Bengaluru-Chandigarh flight, a Pune-Chandigarh flight, a Hyderabad-Lucknow flight, and a Jaipur-Lucknow flight.
Due to diversions, many passengers faced difficulties and complained that they were stuck inside the flights without amenities.
Guru Prasad Singh, a passenger, said, "My flight 6E 242 was diverted to Jaipur, and since 7am, we haven't received any updates. I missed my connecting flight, and there seems to be little urgency in addressing the situation."
Another passenger mentioned that flight 6E 242, which departed from Pune at 4 am, was supposed to reach Chandigarh at 6 am on Friday. "…but the flight landed in Jaipur, and for the last four hours, we are kept like prisoners without any information. No one is ready to say a word to passengers," he said.
Akashdeep Agarwal, another passenger from the Pune-Chandigarh flight, said, "The flight from Pune to Chandigarh was diverted to Jaipur and reached at 8:30 am. No information was shared with the passengers, and we were all stuck inside."
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has "advised" airlines to deploy CAT II/III-compliant aircraft with pilots trained to land in low visibility at the airports in Delhi, Lucknow, Jaipur, and Amritsar in view of prevailing smog conditions. Several flights bound for northern parts of the country are diverted to Jaipur as the airport has proper facilities for landing even in low visibility.