Bhubaneswar: A newly-wed couple were forced to attend their own marriage reception virtually, no thanks to the nationwide flight disruptions, caused due to cancellations by IndiGo.
Sangama Das of Bhubaneswar, Odisha, and Medha Kshirsagar of Hubballi, Karnataka – both software engineers working in Bengaluru – tied the knot on November 23. The wedding was held at Bhubaneswar and Medha’s family planned a reception at Gujarat Bhavan, Hubballi, on Wednesday.
The couple had booked air tickets from Bhubaneswar to Bengaluru and onwards to Hubballi for Tuesday. However, they got stranded after their flights were repeatedly delayed from 9 am on Tuesday until early morning the next day. The flight was eventually cancelled on December 3, NDTV reported.
Several relatives who had tickets from Bhubaneswar to Mumbai and onwards to Hubballi also suffered.
By the time it was realised that the couple would not make it to Hubballi on time, guests had already gathered and all preparations were in place.
Finally, the bride’s parents stepped in and sat in the seats reserved for the couple to perform the rituals. The bride and groom, fully dressed for the occasion in Bhubaneswar, joined the reception through video conferencing.
“The wedding took place on November 23, and we had pl
anned the reception for December 3. But suddenly, at 4 am, the flight was cancelled. We were still hopeful that they might make it, but they couldn’t,” Medha’s mother has been quoted as saying by the channel.
“We felt very bad as we had invited so many relatives, and it was impossible to cancel the event at the last minute. So, after discussing as a family, we decided to have the couple attend the reception online and broadcast their participation on the screen,” she added.
IndiGo, which says it operates nearly 2,200 flights daily, is facing major trouble over the last few days after the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) introduced fresh rules regarding pilots’ working hours and night landing.
IndiGo has struggled to prepare a new roster in accordance with the rules and hundreds of flights were grounded. On Friday, IndiGo cancelled all flights from Delhi.
Flight operations have been hit at the airports in Delhi, Jaipur, Bhopal, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, and other cities, leaving thousands of passengers stranded.
On Thursday, IndiGo cancelled more than 500 flights, the most in a single day in its 20-year history. It told aviation watchdog DGCA that operations are expected to be fully stabilised by February 10 next year and sought temporary relaxations in flight duty norms.
Acknowledging that the flight disruptions happening for the past few days are primarily due to misjudgment and planning gaps in implementing the second phase of the Flight Duty Time Limitation (FDTL) norms, IndiGo also informed the regulator that there will be more cancellations till December 8, and from that day, there will also be a reduction in services.