Friends, today I will share with you a funny incidence happened with me while returning from Agartala (Tripura).
In 2010 I went to Agartala for field working and stayed there for 4 – 5 days. My return ticket was around 2 pm from Maharaja Bir Bikram Airport, Agartala by Air India flight.
After taking breakfast and completing a meeting I left hotel around 12 o’ clock and reached airport around 1 pm. While checking in I asked whether the flight was on right time. the counter personal told that it was around 20 minutes late .
I was not having lunch as the flight was for short distance of around 1 hour journey time. The airport was not very big and amenities are less. I was sitting in the chair and waited for the flight.
Around 1.30 pm there was an announcement that the flight will be further delayed for an hour. So now the flight would leave around 3.20 pm.
I opened my laptop and started some official working. After 10 -15 minutes I felt hungry and started searching for food and found a small counter where I found packed readymade noodles which is to be used with warm water. I had one packet of that.
Around 2.30 pm we were trying to be ready so that we could board the plane. It was supposed to be a small flight with limited numbers of passengers. At that time there was another announcement of delaying the flight to another 1 and ½ hour. So now the flight would leave around 4.50 pm.
Some of us got frustrated for this unusual delay and started shouting for the reasons for this. One Air India personal tried to make us calm by saying to wait in the lobby so that they can provide some snacks to us along with Tea or Coffee.
I could understand the disappointments of the passengers as urgencies are there for everyone and time is valuable.
Snacks with tea/coffee had been served to us and I asked the personal why the flight was late.
He whispered that the actual flight which was supposed to come from Kolkata had technical problems so the authority is looking for another flight from Guwahati, but substitute flight was not available immediately so we had to wait for some time till the substitute flight arrived.
It was already 7.30 pm still there was no sign of the flight. We were exhausted for the delayed flight. Some of us were trying to leave the checked in place and to go out of the airport for roaming. The security personals were not allowing doing so. After hot confrontation with them and discussion with the official we were allowed to move outside the checked in place but within the vicinity of the security.
Around 9.30 pm announcement were made that the flight would leave 11.00 pm. We were tired , bored, exhausted and angry. Some of us were shouting and told that the announcement was an eye wash of the authority and that flight would be leaving the airport on the next day and we had to wait the entire night.
Anyway around 10 pm the official told us to be ready as the flight was coming from Kolkata
