4 minutes of readingPuneFebruary 6, 2026 03:21 pm IST
Around 2 am on Friday, a distraught Vaibhav Raikar stood at the IndiGo counter at the Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport in Amritsar, demanding an explanation for the delay of flight 6E 6129 to Pune. The flight was scheduled to depart at 11:50 p.m. on Thursday, February 5, but had not taken off hours later.
Raikar was traveling from Amritsar to Sangli via Pune to be with his father, who was admitted to an ICU and scheduled for bypass surgery. He had money to deposit for the procedure. Every hour of delay, he said, meant the surgery could be delayed further. “They say they will refund my money. Is that the solution to my problem?” he asked, visibly upset.
Nearby, three women Chennai Those who were neighbors were also waiting to board the same flight. They had been at the airport for more than three hours. “We have a connecting flight from Pune to Chennai, which we are now going to miss,” said Archana Punugu. “We are also changing our flight Delhi now from here and then taking another one to Chennai. But we were supposed to reach Chennai early in the morning, now it will be in the afternoon. “This is unacceptable”
The Amritsar-Pune IndiGo flight, which was scheduled to take off at 11.50 pm on Thursday, finally took off around 3.50 am on Friday. It landed in Pune at 5.50 am, almost four hours after its scheduled arrival time of 1.50 am, leaving passengers awake all night as they waited to board and reach their destination.
According to a indigo font At the airport, the disruption began when Air Traffic Control denied landing clearance to an IndiGo flight from Sharjah to Amritsar due to a problem on the runway. The runway was temporarily closed and a flight scheduled to operate from Amritsar to Bombay was diverted to chandigarh.
Lack of basic arrangements
About an hour later, another plane was arranged to ferry the Mumbai-bound passengers from Amritsar. However, passengers traveling to Pune alleged that the plane originally scheduled for their sector was used for the Mumbai flight. They claimed that as a result, Pune-bound passengers had to wait for the delayed Sharjah flight to land before they could operate their service.
The Sharjah flight landed in Amritsar around 3 on Friday, after which passengers from Pune were finally allowed to board, almost four hours after the scheduled departure time.
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Another passenger questioned the decision to prioritize the Mumbai sector. “One can understand the problem of runways, but why do Pune passengers suffer just to make way for the Mumbai sector?” asked.
Divyam Mehra, who was traveling from Amritsar to Goa via Pune, said the delay meant he would miss his connecting flight scheduled for 5:20 am. “If we leave at 3am, there is no way I can make the connecting flight. I have reservations in Goa and return tickets for February 10, which effectively now gives me only three days there,” he said.
“There are around 30 passengers on this flight, who are taking the connecting flight to Goa. We hope that the airlines will delay that flight too. But of course, it means inconvenience for passengers in Pune.”
Punugu also criticized the lack of basic arrangements for stranded passengers during the early hours of the morning. “There are so many babies and elderly people on the flight, plus a group going to Pune for a relative’s funeral. All this has added to their trauma,” he said.
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While IndiGo did not issue any official statement regarding the flight delays and diversions, when contacted by The indian expressone source said the disruptions were due to operational reasons beyond the airline’s control.