Delhi, Noida, Faridabad, Gurugram hit by heavy rain, hailstorm; 38 flights diverted, departures delayed – PICS
Due to the bad weather in Delhi, operations at the Indira Gandhi International Airport witnessed massive disruption as total 38 flights were diverted to nearby cities between 6 pm and 8.45 pm.
New Delhi: Heavy rains and hailstorm accompanied by strong winds on Thursday lashed Delhi and the adjoining areas, bringing the mercury down by four to five notches. People took to the social media to share photographs of roads covered with hail.
Due to the bad weather, operations at the Delhi airport witnessed massive disruption as total 38 flights were diverted to nearby cities between 6 pm and 8.45 pm.
Several other flights were facing departure delays of over two hours. "Looks almost like snow in Delhi! Massive disruption to flights with multiple diversions across airlines. Customers are requested to be patient, really not in staff or airline control," tweeted Vistara airlines’ chief strategy and commercial officer, Sanjiv Kapoor.
Meanwhile, a Delhi airport official said that nine international flights and 23 domestic flights were diverted to nearby cities. Remaining six flights that were diverted were either private jets or belonged to the Indian Air Force.
Notably, a chartered plane carrying Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar was also diverted. Khattar was flying from Delhi to Jodhpur; however, his plane was diverted to Jaipur.
"In between 6 pm and 7 pm, nine flights were diverted to Jaipur airport. In the same time period, three flights each were diverted to Lucknow airport and Amritsar airport. Two flights were diverted to Varanasi and one flight to Indore in this one-hour period," said the Delhi airport official.
"Due to extremely bad weather, many of the flights are facing a departure delay of more than two hours," he added.
As per another airport official, four out of the nine flights diverted to Jaipur belonged to Air India. "These four flights of Air India were heading to Delhi from Varanasi, Kathmandu, Dubai and Kabul," he said.
Due to the rain, the minimum temperature in the national capital settled at 15 degrees Celsius, six notches above the season's average and the maximum temperature was recorded at 19.1 degrees Celsius, four notches below the season's average.