India’s Directorate-General for Civil Aviation (DGCA) is investigating budget airline GoAir Limited for operating a cargo flight as a passenger flight between Chennai and Port Blair on Tuesday, which resulted in the flight not being allowed to land at the island airport.
GoAir flight G8 1305, which flew in from Chennai on Tuesday afternoon, was banned from landing at Port Blair Airport after the airline was found to be operating a passenger flight while it was supposed to be operating a cargo flight, a senior DGCA official asking for anonymity.
“The DGCA is investigating the matter,” said the official.
According to the updated flight schedule of the Veer Savarkar International Airport in Port Blair operated by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), the G8 1305 is listed as a cargo flight.
“GoAir flight G8 1305 from Chennai to Port Blair did an air turn back/ diversion due to operational reasons and landed in Chennai with 160 passengers on board,” said a GoAir spokesman.
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“GoAir has taken outmost care and rendered all the requisite assistance to the passengers,” added the spokesman.
However, passengers on Tuesday’s GoAir flight said the airline misled them about the day’s events even after returning to Chennai.
“We were told by the airline that the flight was unable to land at Port Blair airport as it didn’t have proper facilities for covid-19 testings, which was not the case,” said Viral Patel of Ahmedabad, who along with his Ms. was one of 16 couples from the city who flew to Port Blair.
“We booked to fly from Ahmedabad to Port Blair on GoAir with the first leg of the flight slated for Monday (14 December) between Ahmedabad and Chennai while the second leg of the flight between Chennai and Port Blair was slated for Tuesday”said Viral.
He was initially informed that his connecting flight to Port Blair was canceled when landing in Chennai on Monday.
“The airline later postponed the flight to Port Blair on Tuesday afternoon,” said Patel. “Although the airline promised us a refund, the whole exercise was a massive waste of time,” added Patel.
(Source – Live Mint)
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