NEW DELHI/BENGALURU: Veerabhadraya Gurupadayya’s first-ever flight experience was supposed to take him to his son’s wedding on the evening of Dec 5. Instead, the 75-year-old went hungry for the better part of the day, barely making the wedding past midnight while losing the bags that contained the groom’s outfit in the ensuing chaos.
The chilli farmer from Hubbali in the southern Indian state of Karnataka was one of the thousands of passengers stranded in airports across the country in the past week as India’s largest domestic airline IndiGo cancelled more than 2,000 flights, facing government action for failing to create a pilot roster in compliance with new aviation rest rules.
