Bagdogra Airport suspends Flight Operations for Several Hours
On Thursday, the flight operations were suspended by the Bagdogra Airport after cracks were found on the runway.
The Bagdogra Airport has suspended flight services for several hours on Thursday. Located near Siliguri in West Bengal, the cracks were discovered by the airport staff on the runway of the airport. As confirmed by airport sources, it is the third time that cracks were found on the runway of the Bagdogra airport in the last 30 days. The flight services were suspended from 7 am on Thursday.
On the condition of being anonymous, an airport official shared that the cracks were discovered on Thursday morning while a routine inspection was going on. After which the flight operations were suspended for around seven hours.
SpiceJet airline informed via Twitter
To state about the closure of the runway, SpiceJet airline took to their official Twitter handle. The tweet stated, "Due to runway closure in Bagdogra (IXB) till 11 am, all departures/arrivals and their consequential flights might get affected. Passengers are requested to keep a check on their flight status."
The air traffic control and runway of Bagdogra airport are handled by the Indian Air Force (IAF). As per a recent update, the IAF wrote a letter to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) in order to state that the runway will remain closed from April 11 to April 25 for the resurfacing purpose of the final layers.
However, as reported by the news agency ANI, the flight operations at the Bagdogra airport did not restart till 1 pm. Due to the urgent crisis, passengers were stuck at the airport while waiting for hours for their respective flights.
