Cyclone Dana: Kolkata airport casts safety net for winds of peril
Telegraph | 24 October 2024
The city airport will remain closed from 6pm on Thursday till 9am on Friday because Cyclone Dana is likely to trigger strong crosswinds, which are dangerous for flights during take-offand landing.
Airport officials said more than 200 flights will be cancelled because of the 15-hour shutdown. The decision left hundreds of passengers scurrying to rebook tickets since Wednesday evening.
IndiGo posted on X: “Due to heavy rains and thunderstorms predicted for the 24th and 25th of Oct, flights to/from #Kolkata & #Bhubaneshwar may be impacted. We kindly request you to stay updated on your flight status…. “
The Met department at the Calcutta airport has predicted the wind speed to vary between 60kmph and 70kmph, gusting to 80kmph, during the period the airport will remain closed.
“To prepare for Cyclone Dana, two meetings were held with all the stakeholdersand the Met director atthe airport. The director informed us that wind speeds may vary between 60kmphand 70kmph, gusting to 80kmph, and there are also chances of heavy to very heavy rain in Calcutta and adjoining areas,” said an airport official.
“To ensure safety of passengers and aircraft, all the stakeholders unanimously decided to suspend operations from 6pm on Thursday till 9am on Friday.”
The two parallel runways at the airport stretch from north to south. The winds from the Bay of Bengal, under the impact of Dana, are expected to blow from east to west.
“This will lead to strong crosswinds,” the officialsaid.
“The crosswinds will be experienced between 3,000ft and 20,000ft from the ground. So, it will be unsafe for flights to land or take off under such circumstances.”
In May, the airport was closed for 21 hours because of crosswinds triggered by Cyclone Remal. More than 400 flights were cancelled.
The 15-hour closure of the airport from Thursday evening has made travel plans go haywire for many.
City businessman Lalit Tejwani was scheduled to take a flight to Singapore at 11.30pm on Thursday and then onwards to Tokyo for a business meeting.
“I have an important meeting in Tokyo on Monday morning, for which I was planning to reach a couple of daysearly. I am now waiting fora communication from theairline. The cancellation means I will miss the connecting flight, too,” said Tejwani.“I am trying to book a ticketon an earlier flight toSingapore.”
IT professional Samrat Basu was to fly from Chennai to Calcutta on Thursday evening.
“The IndiGo flight was scheduled to take off from Chennai at 7.15pm. I am trying to book a ticket on an earlier flight,” Basu said on Wednesday evening.
Businessman Aroon Shahani’s sister Poonam Singh was supposed to take an IndiGo flight from Mumbai to Calcutta on Thursday evening. The flight was to land at8pm.
“She has a US visa interview in Calcutta on Friday morning, for which she had waited for three months. If my sister misses the interview, she will have to wait for several more months,” said Shahani. “We are trying to get her a ticket on an earlier flight.”
Shahani’s daughter Joshna is scheduled to arrive from London, via Abu Dhabi, at 3.30am on Friday. “We don’t know whether she will have to wait in Abu Dhabi or come via Mumbai or Delhi (because of the closure of the Calcutta airport),” he said.
Trains
More than 150 trains have been cancelled by South Eastern Railway on Thursday and Friday. Many of them are from Howrah, Shalimar, Santragachhi and Kharagpur.
The long-distance trains cancelled on Thursday include the Falaknuma Express (between Howrah and Secunderabad), Dhauli Express (between Shalimar and Puri), East-Coast Express (between Shalimar and Hyderabad), Shatabdi Express (between Howrah and Puri) and Coromandel Express (between Shalimar and Chennai).
The trains from Bengal cancelled on Friday aremostly from Digha and Kharagpur.
In all, 190 local trains in the Sealdah division have been cancelled between 8pm on Thursday and 10am on Friday. Most of them are in the Sealdah South suburban section, which connects Sealdah with Diamond Harbour, Canning, Sonarpur, Baruipur, Budge Budge and other pockets in South 24-Parganas.
In the Howrah division, more than 60 trains havebeen cancelled, mostly between Howrah and Burdwan, Bandel, Serampore andSeoraphuli.