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NEW DELHI: Over 200 Pakistani nationals stranded at Delhi’s international airport after their flight was diverted from Lahore due to technical fault, have to face a nightmarish situation as families and children were first confined to plane for over eight hours and then were confined to a section of lounge, with scare food and facilities.
The Gulf Air flight GF766 was on way from Bahrain to Lahore on Sunday evening with 214 passengers. They were near Lahore, waiting for the inclement weather to clear up, when the plane was apparently hit by lightning.
“The pilot told us that the plane will now go to Delhi. You can imagine how surprised we were on learning this,” Usman Bashir, one of the passengers, told Express from IGI airport.
After about one hour from Lahore, the passengers landed in Delhi at about 10 p.m. “The weather was as bad as it was in Lahore, so why couldn’t Gulf Air have taken the plane to some airport within Pakistan,” said Bashir, a software developer based in London, travelling with wife with a 2-year-old toddler and 4-month-old infant, both of them unwell.
The passengers remained in the plane for over eight hours, before they were allowed to disembark in the morning. “The security was so tight. We were put in part of the lounge and told not to try to wander around,” he said.
Finally, they were all asked to go and sit near Gate no 15 on the transit lounge, where they have remained ever since. Feeling abandoned by both airline and airport authorities, the passengers had to scramble for food. After many of the passengers protested, they were allowed lunch at a restaurant and given sandwiches later.
According to Pakistan high commission officials, the state airline had offered to charter a plane to take all the passengers back to Lahore, but it was rejected by Gulf Air and Indian authorities.
A high commission official said that Gulf air engineers had arrived and once the plane was certified safe, the flight would leave at 4 a.m.
“At this moment, I just want to go home,” he said. He remarked that he was going home with his children for the first time after their birth. “But, they have stepped in India before Pakistan”.
214 Pakistanis Stranded at Delhi Airport for Over 24 Hours -The New Indian Express
The Gulf Air flight GF766 was on way from Bahrain to Lahore on Sunday evening with 214 passengers. They were near Lahore, waiting for the inclement weather to clear up, when the plane was apparently hit by lightning.
“The pilot told us that the plane will now go to Delhi. You can imagine how surprised we were on learning this,” Usman Bashir, one of the passengers, told Express from IGI airport.
After about one hour from Lahore, the passengers landed in Delhi at about 10 p.m. “The weather was as bad as it was in Lahore, so why couldn’t Gulf Air have taken the plane to some airport within Pakistan,” said Bashir, a software developer based in London, travelling with wife with a 2-year-old toddler and 4-month-old infant, both of them unwell.
The passengers remained in the plane for over eight hours, before they were allowed to disembark in the morning. “The security was so tight. We were put in part of the lounge and told not to try to wander around,” he said.
Finally, they were all asked to go and sit near Gate no 15 on the transit lounge, where they have remained ever since. Feeling abandoned by both airline and airport authorities, the passengers had to scramble for food. After many of the passengers protested, they were allowed lunch at a restaurant and given sandwiches later.
According to Pakistan high commission officials, the state airline had offered to charter a plane to take all the passengers back to Lahore, but it was rejected by Gulf Air and Indian authorities.
A high commission official said that Gulf air engineers had arrived and once the plane was certified safe, the flight would leave at 4 a.m.
“At this moment, I just want to go home,” he said. He remarked that he was going home with his children for the first time after their birth. “But, they have stepped in India before Pakistan”.
214 Pakistanis Stranded at Delhi Airport for Over 24 Hours -The New Indian Express
