23 May,2011 06:15 AM IST | | Sheetal Sukhija
While 90 passengers were waiting for six hours at the terminal; airline officials went ahead and cancelled the flight without informing anyone
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Passengers of Jet Airways, who were stranded at the Bangalore International Airport (BIAL) on Saturday after a flight was cancelled, were put through the ultimate test of patience.
Jet Airways flight attendant claimed that they did not inform passengers of the cancellation because they themselves were unaware about it
Flight 9W486, scheduled to take off for Chennai at 5 pm, was delayed for over six hours, and then finally cancelled at 11 pm without prior notice to the 90 stranded fliers.
Technical snag
According to the airlines, the flight was apparently delayed because of 'technical snag', and failure to inform the stranded passengers led to an uncertain wait throughout the night for them.
"We were issued boarding passes at 5 pm on Saturday and till about 11 pm we didn't know what was happening.
They announced that the flight had been delayed and kept us waiting all night. At 10.30 am yesterday morning, a few passengers were provided seats on a different carrier," lamented Tyagarajan, an entrepreneur from the city.
Ignorant of the fact
When contacted, a Jet Airways flight attendant claimed that they did not inform passengers of the cancellation because they themselves were unaware about it.
"There was an oil leakage and the engineering department had been working on it for six hours," claimed Jet Airways employee Abhijeet.
Many passengers, who had to take connecting international flights from Chennai, were delayed and missed their flights. "Our family had to take a flight to Singapore, but because of the delay we missed our flight.
We urged Jet Airways authorities to either compensate our loss or put us on another flight. But they haven't reverted back yet," claimed S Manine, a passenger.
Avail refund
Around 14 passengers, who were to take a connecting flight to Kuala Lumpur, were put on a Kingfisher flight to Mumbai, from where they took the connecting flight.
Jet Airways announced compensation yesterday morning. "Passengers can avail refunds on their tickets at our registration desk.
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We'll try to avoid such complications in future," said Pavitra, an attendant with the airline. Many however, had to cancel business assignments and weekend plans because of the cancellation.
