Pune: A Pashan family’s plans to celebrate Diwali and Chhath in Patna were thrown into disarray after SpiceJet cancelled its flight following a series of delays on Thursday night, leaving passengers stranded and struggling to find alternative travel arrangements.Pashan resident Siddharth Mehta, who was travelling with three family members, said they spent several anxious hours at Pune airport before the airline finally announced the cancellation of the flight (SG-646). The family, which has spent around Rs1.30 lakh on its travel arrangements, said it was left exhausted and uncertain about whether they would be able to make the trip at all.Mehta, a working professional, said the family had originally booked SpiceJet tickets to travel to Patna on Nov 9 and return on Nov 19 on an IndiGo flight. However, concerns over repeated delays and cancellations of SpiceJet flights prompted him to advance the onward journey to Nov 5, hoping to keep a few days as a buffer in case of disruptions. “Unfortunately, things have gone completely wrong. The original flight was scheduled to depart Pune in the morning on Nov 9. After we rescheduled, we were informed that the departure time had changed to 8.10pm on Thursday. Before leaving for the airport, I checked the flight status and found that it had been delayed to 11.30pm. We still reached the airport with our luggage around 9pm,” Mehta said.However, the family was not allowed to enter the departure area. On enquiring, they were informed that the flight had been further delayed to 2.15am on Friday. The delay was subsequently pushed to 4am, before airline staff announced that the flight had been cancelled altogether. “There were several passengers gathered outside the SpiceJet counter, all scrambling for information. The airline staff initially spoke about alternative arrangements and offered to reschedule some passengers on a Friday flight, but also cautioned that there was no guarantee that it would operate. We had had enough by then and returned home around 1.30am,” Mehta said.The family has since made repeated calls to both the airline and the travel portal through which the tickets were booked, but has received no concrete resolution. Mehta said the travel portal had offered to reschedule the journey on another date on the same airline, but could not confirm when the service would operate reliably. A refund, meanwhile, could take two to three weeks to process. “The bigger problem is that our return tickets are on IndiGo. If we cancel those, we will not get a refund because that flight is operating as scheduled. The travel portal has also indicated that miscellaneous charges, including convenience fees, could be deducted if we seek a refund for the cancelled SpiceJet flight. I have been calling the airline and the portal repeatedly, but nothing has moved. How can passengers be treated like this?” he said.TOI sent a WhatsApp message to a SpiceJet spokesperson seeking the airline’s response on Friday morning. A reply was awaited until the report went to press.The disruptions also triggered complaints on social media, with passengers saying the sudden cancellations were jeopardising their festive travel plans. An X user, Mayank, wrote that a SpiceJet flight from Pune to Varanasi scheduled for Nov 6 had been cancelled without prior intimation. “How am I supposed to go home now for Diwali?” the user asked.
