Today, I will share a funny incident that happened to me while returning from Agartala (Tripura).
In 2010 I went to Agartala for fieldwork 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 breakfast and completing a meeting, I left the hotel around 12 o’clock and reached the airport around 1 pm. While checking in, I asked whether the flight was at the right time, and the counter person said that it was around 20 minutes late.
I was not having lunch as the flight was for a short distance of around 1 hour journey time. The airport was not very big, and the amenities were few. I was sitting in a chair and waiting for the flight.
Around 1.30 pm, there was an announcement that the flight would be further delayed for an hour. So now the flight would leave around 3.20 pm.
I opened my laptop and started some official work. After 10 -15 minutes, I felt hungry and searched for food and found a small counter where I found packed ready-made noodles 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. There was another announcement of delaying the flight to another 1 and ½ hours. So now the flight would leave around 4.50 pm.
Some of us got frustrated with 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 could 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 were served to us, and I asked the person why the flight was late.
He whispered that the actual flight, which was supposed to come from Kolkata, had technical problems, so the authority was looking for another flight from Guwahati, but a substitute flight was not available immediately. Hence, we had to wait until the substitute flight arrived.
It was already 7.30 pm, but still, there was no sign of the flight. We were exhausted from the delayed flight. Some of us were trying to leave the check-in place and go out of the airport for roaming, and the security personnel were not allowing doing so. After the 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, announcements were made that the flight would leave at 11.00 pm. We were tired, bored, exhausted and angry. Some of us were shouting and told that the announcement was an eyewash of the authority and that flight would be leaving the airport 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.
