BENGALURU: Due to poor visibility conditions at Mangaluru International Airport on Thursday, an Indigo flight that completed the full trip from Bengaluru to Mangaluru did not get permission to land and returned to the Kempegowda International Airport in the city.
Flight no. 6E 131, departed at 6.30 am, 15 minutes behind schedule from KIA. It reached Mangaluru by 7.10 am, the scheduled arrival time but could not land at the airport. An Indigo spokesperson said, "Due to the bad weather conditions at the airport, the aircraft did not get permission to land. So it hovered over the Mangaluru airport for sometime and returned to Bengaluru." A source said the flight was hovering over Mangaluru skies for 30 minutes.
According to a spokesperson of airport operator, Bangalore International Airport Limited, flight 6E 131 left Bengaluru around 11.15 am. "There was no problem at Bengaluru airport. It was due to weather conditions at Mangaluru," she said.
Indigo was unable to specify the number of passengers on the flight.
An official statement from Mangaluru airport confirmed that 6E 131 had been diverted. It said a flight from Hyderabad 6E 7163 was delayed, the arrival of 6E 347 to Mangaluru was delayed by 7 minutes and it departed late by 25 minutes, flight no. 6E 496 from Kolkata to Mangaluru via Bengaluru arrived late by 16 minutes and departed only 12.50 pm, a delay of 50 minutes.