Chennai: Heavy overnight rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning, disrupted more than 20 flight services at Chennai airport. An IndiGo flight carrying 184 passengers from Kolkata was diverted to Hyderabad after it could not land in Chennai.
More than 10 domestic flights arriving from places including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Madurai, Tiruchy and Kolkata were unable to land immediately and circled in the air for extended periods.
As the rain eased, flights that had been holding in the air began landing in Chennai one after another.
Departures were also affected, with 12 flights, including domestic services to Madurai, Kochi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune and Delhi, and international services to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Sri Lanka, Frankfurt and Abu Dhabi, leaving between one and two hours behind schedule.
Passengers arriving at the airport faced additional difficulties because rainwater had accumulated in parking bays. Those arriving on flights parked at open bays without aerobridge facilities had to disembark and board waiting passenger-transfer vehicles amid the waterlogging.
Several passengers struggled to walk through the water to reach the vehicles.
The situation was also difficult outside the terminal, where rainwater flowed in large volumes through the portico area. Cars arriving to pick up passengers found it difficult to stop and collect them, while passengers had to negotiate waterlogged stretches to reach their vehicles.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
