DELHI AIRPORT TERMINAL 1 ROOF COLLAPSE: WAR ROOM SETUP TO ENSURE REFUNDS TO FLYERS, SAYS CIVIL AVIATION MINISTER

In response to the event with the canopy collapse at Delhi Airport, Union Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu stated on Saturday, June 29, that a war room has been established to provide reimbursements or replacement flights for travellers impacted by the tragedy. The Minister promised to take the required preventative action to make sure that similar occurrences don’t happen again.

Additionally, he expressed his sympathies for the deaths caused by the canopy collapse tragedy at Terminal 1 of Delhi Airport. Expressing his condolences, Ram Mohan Naidu said, “The incident that happened at the Delhi airport is very tragic and I offer my condolences to the one individual who lost his life. Some people were injured also in the incident, they have been taken to the hospital and their treatment is underway.” He further said that the situation has been taken under control.

The Minister guaranteed a refund within seven days or alternate flights for those whose flights were cancelled. “We have taken control of the situation and as soon as the incident was reported, all the emergency response teams including teams of NDRF and CISF immediately went to the spot and engaged in the relief operations to prevent any further damage.” 

He further stated that a war room has been constituted in this regard and an officer from the Ministry has been placed in the war room to ensure the facilitation. To ensure this happens, the war rooms have been set up at Terminal 2 and Terminal 3. The Ministry has released a statement regarding this which has all the numbers. 

Citing the proactive measures taken by the Civil Aviation Ministry, Naidu stated that for now Terminal-1 is completely closed and evacuated. All the flight movements have been shifted to Terminal 2 and Terminal 3. For those people whose flights have been cancelled, they are being given either a refund or an alternate flight. The Civil Aviation Ministry has decided to pass a circular to provide refunds to the people within seven days. 

Ministry to Airlines

The Ministry has also issued a circular to airlines, citing not to increase the fares. “When such incidents occur, there is an increase in air fares, so we have issued another circular to airlines on not increasing the fare of the tickets and maintaining the prices,” said Naidu.

Ensuring such incidents don’t occur in the future, the Minister said, “We don’t want a similar incident to happen again so we have brought in a special team from IIT Delhi’s structural engineering department. They will give an initial inspection report. Based on this the necessary action will be taken to stop such incidents.” “Since we don’t want such incidents to be repeated, we will ensure a structural preliminary inspection is done at all airports. We have sought a report from all the airports across the country within 2-5 days, upon which we will see what necessary measures are needed to be taken to prevent such incidents in the future,” he further added.

(with inputs from ANI)

2024-06-29T07:06:15Z dg43tfdfdgfd