Bengaluru lockdown: Scheduled flights, trains to run as usual
BENGALURU: The lockdown re-imposed in Bengaluru without detailed guidelines has caught many potential air and rail travellers off-guard. Airlines were bombarded by passengers demanding to know if they can travel or have to opt for cancellation. A reliable source said that there will be no problem in the case of pre-booked tickets as flights will be permitted to operate undisturbed.
The State is expected to come out with exhaustive guidelines on Monday. “Flights and trains planned for
operation will continue to run undisturbed. However, people may need to make arrangements on their own to reach the airport or railway station. If passengers manage to get a cab, they will be allowed to run with
the passenger’s ticket considered as an e-pass for the cab driver,” the source added.
Pawan Bali had tweeted to the airport: “As Bangalore has announced lockdown from 14th July will the flights be functional as I have one booked on 15th from Bangalore to Delhi.” Flyer Purushothamam asked IndiGo: “I have confirmed tickets from Chennai to Bangalore on 15th. Due to complete lockdown in Blr will these flights fly. Please clarify.” Another flyer Ponnappa P tweeted to Lufthansa, “I am booked on repat flight LH755 (Blr to France) on July 22. Does the Bangalore City lockdown (July 14 to 22) impact this flight in any way?
Lufthansa responded: “The flight is scheduled as planned for now. We do not have further information. Please keep an eye out for updates via our website.” Similar responses were given by many airlines.
The call centre number of the Indian Railways too received many queries from worried passengers. The absence of any physical cancellation at any PRS centre barring KRS rly station (till 2 pm) added to their woes as they could not go in for enquiries.
A N Krishna Reddy, Senior Divisional Commercial Manager, said, “We are waiting for the State government to release clear guidelines on Monday. As of now, the inter-State trains have good response but not the intra-state ones. “ There are five pairs of special trains operating to and from Bengaluru to other States: Yesvantpur-Howrah (5 days a week), KSR Bengaluru City to Danapur in Bihar (daily), Yesvantpur to Hazrat Nizammudin (bi-weekly), Rajdhani Special from KSR to New Delhi (daily) and Udyan Express from KSR to Mumbai (aily) . In addition, intra-state special trains run daily from KSR to Mysuru and Belagavi and the Jan Shatabdi train to Hubballi.