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Hundreds of passengers in Andaman cry foul on Air Deccan

Port Blair, Sep 30 (UNI)

About 160 passengers of Air Deccan cried foul today after landing in Andaman’s Veer Savarkar Air Terminus after they found that their luggage was not carried due to some pay-load restrictions.

Irate passengers, mostly tourists, picked up fights with the officials after they 40 found their luggage was missing.

The flight authorities told UNI that this had been done due to pay-load restrictions.

’’ This is a cheap stunt to earn short-cut profit,’’ said U K Saha, a passenger.

The Andaman Chamber of Commerce and Industries (AICC) condemned the incident and said such situations can affect the tourist inflow.

The Airline should find a solution to this problem and ensure that passenger’s luggages should be brought along with them, ACCI president Mohd H Jadwet said.

Air Deccan officials said this was done due to pay-load restriction. However, we are trying best to deliver luggage to the passengers as early as possible, airline officials from Bangalore told UNI over phone.

Air Deccan officials here said, ’’ We know passengers are facing problems and we are trying our best to deal with that.’’

‘‘Yesterday our flights had to off load about 20 people for carrying more luggage. We were still unable to carry all to maintain the balance, Andaman Air Deccan manager said.

Police tightened security to control the irate mob at the airport, official sources said.

‘‘We neither have extra clothes with us nor are we carrying enough money. Some important medicines are also left in our luggage and we have no clue what is going on,’’ said another passenger.

Tour operators fear that the tourist inflow may reduce if such conditions prevail, the sources said.