karatecatman
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 Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 1:03 pm Post subject: Etihad Dhaka flt diverts to Kolkata; pax angry |
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TIMES OF INDIA
Hotels full, fliers forced to wait at airport all day
Arpit Basu
TNN
11 December 2009
KOLKATA: When Etihad Airways flight from Abu Dhabi to Dhaka was diverted to Kolkata and landed in the city airport at 4.30 am on Thursday, the airline wanted to accommodate the 193 passengers and 13 crew members in a city hotel. But they remained in the airport's transit lounge for the entire day as there were no rooms available in any of Kolkata's star hotels.
Rooms in them were booked for guests attending weddings held in some of them while delegates to a medical convention had put up in one of the hotels.
"Every hotel we contacted, the sugar-coated smiles of receptionists would disappear," said an Air India official.
AI was in charge of ground handling of the aircraft that landed due to bad weather over Dhaka. As the weather did not improve till 11 am, the flight was cancelled as the duty time limitation of its pilot got over. Since then, airline officials launched a frantic search for rooms.
"Fliers created a ruckus and officials had a tough time convincing them. We got refreshments and only after 9 pm could we transfer them to the Ffort and Vedic Village," the official added.
Hoteliers say they are finding it tough to cope with the rush. All rooms have been booked for the entire month and more.
"All our rooms have been booked till December 14 because of an international convention and several weddings. We are really finding it difficult to make arrangements for unscheduled guests," said a spokesperson of Sonar Kolkata.
The six five star hotels in the city Taj Bengal, Hyatt Regency, Sonar Kolkata, Oberoi Grand, Park and Hindustan International together have 1,234 rooms. The six hotels don't have a single room left to accommodate new guests at least till December 13 to 14.
Hoteliers maintained that such booking are not cancelled easily but agreed that they hike the tariff for a room if a booking for it is cancelled. "It will depend on the quality of rooms and the extent to which demand is matched by other star hotels," said a spokesperson of Hotel Hindustan International.
Travel Agents , however, feel if any rooms are available during this peak hour, the tariff will increase by at least 20-25%. Agents said the problem started around 3 years back.
"This is a perennial problem in Kolkata. Visitor may find a bed only in the shacks dotting the narrow lanes and bylanes of central Kolkata. Till the rush is on, we can't guarantee anything better," said Anil Punjabi, regional chairman of Travel Agents' Federation of India.
The room crunch would have eased if several hotel projects that were in the pipeline had gone ahead. But the economic meltdown stalled several of them. No new hotels have come up other than a Boutique property called Chrome.
For the high-end guests, it is expected that the crisis will ease by 2012 when three five-star hotels a 200 room Taj Gateway Hotel near Ruby hospital, a 250 room hotel by the MBD group(Including a 100 room budget hotel in the same compound) in place of the now shut Airport hotel and another 250 room hotel by the Ashok Group at Jessore Road. |
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