CHENNAI: Late-night showers in Chennai and its suburbs disrupted flight services at the Chennai airport on Wednesday.
Following the rains, flights could not land or depart due to strong winds accompanied by thunderstorms and lightning.
Reportedly, 12 flights were unable to land in Chennai and kept circling the skies for a while.
Similarly, 14 flights scheduled for departure from Chennai took off late.
An Indigo Airlines Kozhikode-Chennai flight with 70 passengers and an Indigo Airlines passenger flight from Delhi with 158 passengers were unable to land in the airstrip and circled the skies for a long time.
The Kozhikode flight was diverted to Trichy and the Delhi flight went to Bengaluru instead.
10 flights from Madurai, Mumbai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Goa, and Varanasi were unable to land and had to hover in the skies for a while. Once the winds and thunder abated, the planes were able to land in the Chennai airstrip, one after the other.
Meanwhile, 14 flights, including those bound for Dubai, Kuwait, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Abu Dhabi, Bangkok, Delhi, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Thiruvananthapuram, which were supposed to take off from Chennai, took off late due to the thunderstorms.