Airlines waive cancellation charges

Mumbai: With roads being blocked by protestors making it impossible for fliers to reach the airport on time for their flights, many airlines announced on Wednesday that they would not charge cancellation charges for those who missed their flights. The bandh was called off at 4.30 pm by Dalit leader Prakash Ambedkar, and while services slowly limped back to normalcy in the evening, officials from Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) said that there was no delay in “flights landing and taking off”. Many Mumbaikars complained that Google’s Maps app that shows traffic updates was temporarily unavailable due to which they had difficulty in choosing their commute routes.

According to an official from Air India, they would be waiving off ticket cancellation/rescheduling charges for its flights to and from Mumbai for Wednesday and Thursday. Other carriers like Vistara, Indigo and Jet Airways also announced waiving off charges for cancellation/rescheduling of domestic flights in light of many of them not being able to reach the airport on time as access roads were blocked at various places. As per data from an international flight tracking website, 12 flights to Mumbai that included seven departures and five arrivals were cancelled while another 235 flights were delayed.   “I had to call in and cancel my flight booking to Delhi as I was stuck in traffic due to a road block at Kherwadi junction at Bandra (east),” said Jayesh Anand, a flier.    

Many tech-savvy road travellers also complained of the Google Map app which shows traffic density in real time being off for a couple of hours. “The Google map service is very useful to know which route to take and which one to avoid. However, between 11 am and 3 pm the services were available intermittently as a result of which it was difficult to opt for less crowded roads,” said Nikhil Mehta, a resident of Versova.