Passengers complain as flight cancellations continue

New Delhi, March 14 (IANS) As airlines continued to cancel more flights on Thursday, passengers took to the social media to vent their ire.

On the second straight day, 32 SpiceJet flights were axed on Thursday following the grounding of its 737-MAX aircraft.

The budget carrier said: "Due to cancellations and rescheduling of some of our flights, we are expecting high traffic at all customer touch points leading to longer wait time. We request you to be patient, we are doing out best to assist all of you."

But passengers were not mollified. They voiced their displeasure on the social media.

A Vijay Kasar tweeted: "... No responsibilities taken by SpiceJet for few passengers who have somehow not checked Junk SMS & emails from airlines informing rescheduling and left stranded with kids. #Disgusting."

Another passenger, Vijaybahu Joshi, urged Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu to force Spicejet to issue refunds.

Another twitter handle @NamishSir said: "@flyspicejet Please let us know in early hours if the flight SG-746 is cancelled, so that I can plan alternate options. It's already delayed 2 hours due to 'operational reasons'"

On Wednesday, the airline cancelled 14 flights after all Boeing 737-MAX aircraft were ordered to be grounded in India following the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane of the same model that killed all 157 people on board.

The government has told domestic airlines not to go in for predatory air fare pricing and keep passenger comfort in mind.

Operations of airlines like SpiceJet and Jet Airways have been hit hard as Spice uses 12 Boeing 737-MAX planes and Jet 5.

Even otherwise, Jet has been grounding planes for many reasons. Around 50 of its planes are said to be non-operational.

Pilot shortage has forced IndiGo to truncate its flight schedule.