DGCA, Air India pass the buck on Hajj flight mess, Chief Minister asks Chief Secretary to take up the matter

While the failure of authorities to facilitate landing of flights carrying Hajj pilgrims at the Srinagar airport on Thursday put the state government in an embarrassing situation, the directorate general of civil aviation and Air India are passing buck over the issue. The Air India has blamed the DGCA for denying them the landing permission while the DGCA has in turn blamed the airline for being late.
On Thursday, the Srinagar airport authorities returned an Air India A1-5102 flight carrying Haj pilgrims to Kashmir from Jeddah while another Hajj flight A1-5104 wasn’t even allowed to take off from New Delhi airport as the DGCA allegedly denied permission to the airline to land its flights after sunset.

Station manager Air India Srinagar, Muhammad Iqbal told Kashmir Post that their flight was hovering over Srinagar airport for about 25 minutes “as it was denied permission by the DGCA to land.”
“Despite clearance by the Indian Air Force, the non-issuance of permission by DGCA led to chaos as a result of which we had to divert our flight back to Delhi Airport,” Iqbal said.
“For operation of flights post-dusk, the airlines have to seek permission from DGCA as night operation of flights has not started in Srinagar so far,” he said, adding that the Hajj flight coming from Jeddah was already late due to congestion at the Jeddah airport.

He said that Hajjis on board on rescheduled flights landed safely at Srinagar airport on Friday. Three flights including two rescheduled ones landed at the airport, he said.
However, the DGCA and the Airports Authority of India have put the blame on Air India for being late in seeking permission for landing of flights.
“Air India had not sought permission for landing of flights post-dusk at Srinagar airport as a result of which the landing was not allowed,” said Srinagar-based director of Airports Authority of India, Sharad Kumar.
While replying to the version of AI about being denied permission to land, the director said: “May be they had sought permission late; that can be the reason for denial of landing post-sunset.”
Due to failure of authorities to facilitate landing of the Hajj flights, the relatives of the Hajj pilgrims staged massive protest and resorted to anti-government, pro-freedom, anti-India and pro-Pakistan sloganeering at the airport on Thursday evening. The videos of the sloganeering instantly went viral on social media sites.
Officials said that Hajj flight 5106 scheduled for Friday was cancelled. “As the flight was scheduled to arrive late in the evening, keeping in view the lack of night landing facilities, the decision to reschedule the flight was taken and its date would be announced by the authorities,” an official said.
Meanwhile, the Hajjis on board the rescheduled flights said that their flight kept hovering over the Srinagar airport for around half an hour. “Then an announcement was made in the plane that the landing could not take place. Later, we were taken back to New Delhi,” they said after landing here on Friday.
Narrating the ordeal, they said they faced immense inconvenience since Thursday evening after the landing of flights was not allowed at the Srinagar airport.
“We faced inconvenience since we started our travel from Jeddah airport. We were only given the breakfast, even water was not provided to us on the plane till we reached New Delhi,” Mushtaq Ahmad Bhat, a Haji from Sopore said.
“We were kept in the plane till 9 pm at the Delhi airport. After we de-boarded, we were made to wait at the airport till 3 am,” he said.
He said the Hajjis were taken to a hotel only after they held a protest. “It was a horrific experience for us. No official listened to us at the airport,” he said.
Another pilgrim said they weren’t offered a single a drop of water by the authorities during their 36-hour stay at the Delhi airport and their luggage was placed in separate flights. “When we returned to Srinagar, we had to wait for seven hours after landing at airport to collect our luggage. Many Hajjis were referred to hospital due to dehydration,” he said.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has taken a strong note of the delay caused in the landing of the first Hajj flight to Srinagar airport yesterday, an official spokesman said on Friday.
Chairing a high-level meeting in this regard here, the Chief Minister asked the chief secretary to take up the matter with the authorities of civil aviation at the government of India and ask the airline authorities and Air Traffic Control to ensure that the same is not repeated again, the spokesman said.
Mehbooba also asked the principal resident commissioner at New Delhi to be stationed there during the period of Hajj flights and coordinate the timely and smooth arrival of Hajjis to the state, the spokesman added.
The Chief Minister also directed the divisional commissioner Kashmir to get the airline and airport authorities to ensure that in no case shall the flights carrying Hajjis back home be made to wait for landing or put to any inconvenience. “She also stressed on a coordinated approach among all the agencies concerned to ensure that the pilgrims return back home in time and without any inconvenience,” the spokesman said..
Chief secretary BB Vyas; director general of police, SP Vaid; principal secretary, Home, RK Goyal; principal secretary to Chief Minister, Rohit Kansal; divisional commissioner, Kashmir, Baseer Ahmad Khan; IGP(CID), A G Mir and other officers were present in the meeting.

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