- Sunday, May 05, 2024
After a lot of back and forth on April 17 and 18, hours of waiting at boarding terminals and standing in long queues for information, they were provided with accommodation and food by the airline.
By: Twinkle Roy
THE unexpected heavy downpour in Dubai and other regions of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last week threw flight operations out of gear, leaving thousands of people stranded at the city’s airport for several hours.
According to a report by My Kolkata section of India’s The Telegraph, a group of 34 passengers travelling from Kolkata, the capital of the eastern state of West Bengal, to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia for Umrah on April 17, were allegedly stranded at the airport for 50 hours, while their scheduled transit time was just a few hours.
Officials at Dubai airport said Emirates operates two flights between Dubai and Kolkata daily and they were in service on Friday (19), the My Kolkata report added.
Read: Air India’s A350 aircraft to fly Delhi-Dubai route from May 1
While the morning flight landed in Kolkata at 9.05 am and the evening at 7.37 pm (both local time), the report cited the officials as saying.
Looking at the gravity of the situation, the Indian embassy in Abi Dhabi issued a travel advisory on Friday cautioning Indians who were scheduled to travel from Dubai airport to leave for the airport only after receiving the “final confirmation” from the respective airlines regarding the departure date and time.
“Due to disruption caused by unprecedented weather conditions in the UAE earlier this week, Dubai International Airport has temporarily limited the number of inbound flights. While the UAE authorities are working round the clock to ensure normalisation of operations, the situation is unprecedented,” the advisory said.
“The Airport Authorities have advised that passengers may travel to the Airport ONLY AFTER final confirmation from the respective airlines regarding the departure date and time of the respective flights,” it added.
Read: India’s Dubai mission launches helpline numbers for Indians hit by extreme rain
It also asked Indians travelling to or transitioning through the UAE city to reschedule non-essential travel till the operations became normal.
The group of 34 passengers from Metiaburuz and Garden Reach areas of Kolkata who were transiting in Dubai to reach their destination in Saudi Arabia reached the UAE city by an Emirates flight at 2.10 pm local time on April 17, a day after extreme rain lashed the desert city, the report said.
After a lot of back and forth on April 17 and 18, hours of waiting at boarding terminals and standing in long queues for information, they were provided with accommodation and food by the airline but it took them three hours to get their rooms due to the long queue of passengers waiting to be transported to hotels.
“We had been stranded at the airport till 4 am on Friday. There was utter chaos. To get any information, we had to stand in long queues,” Saiyed Mohammad Ali Mollah, proprietor of Humsafar Travels in Calcutta, who took the group to Jeddah for Umrah, was quoted as saying by My Kolkata.
“Like thousands of others, we stayed in the terminal building till late on April 18. Finally, an airline employee asked us to go to their counter in the arrival area, where arrangements would be made for our hotel accommodation,” he told the news outlet over phone from Dubai.
On reaching the hotel, the stranded group received information from Emirates that their flight to Jeddah would depart in the afternoon. They rushed back and could board their flight, but only after several hours of waiting.
