Mumbai: Three international flights cancelled

TNN | Sep 4, 2011, 02.00AM IST

MUMBAI: Some of the worst flight delays took place over Friday night and Saturday morning after the Turkish Airlines aircraft skidded off the main runway onto a nearby plot of mud. Flight schedules were off track by more than hour with departing aircraft forced to wait in long queues for over 90 minutes for their turn to take-off. By Saturday evening, most carriers were running behind by an hour. Not only was the main runway out of action, the secondary runway had closed four times due to poor visibility. Many aircraft that were waiting to land were forced to fly in Pune airspace just to hold as bad weather made it difficult to circle over Mumbai airport.

Singapore Airlines cancelled its arrival and departures to Mumbai, while Continental Airlines only cancelled its departure. Six flights were diverted to other airports. Passengers, too, had a harrowing experience. "My flight from Bangalore was scheduled to land at 11 pm on Friday, but we d landed past midnight as we were circling for over an hour," said a passenger.

A commander said: "The weather over Mumbai was so bad with clouds and winds that we diverted to Pune only to hold there for an hour and return to land in Mumbai. We had carried around an hour-and-half of extra fuel."

Source:  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com