Scindia hurls ‘arm-chair critic’ jibe at Shashi Tharoor over Delhi airport ‘chaos’ tweets

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor questioned the Indian government's preparedness to ensure that airlines have sufficiently trained pilots to land planes on CAT III-B compliant runways at Delhi airport that enable continuance of flight operations even during visibility as low as 50 metres due to fog conditions. This comes as several flights were delayed or cancelled at Delhi Airport, making passengers wait for long hours amid the severe cold wave conditions that gripped north India.

To Tharoor's allegations, Union Minister for Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia posted a series of tweets hitting out at the Congress MP. Scindia said, “It is for someone who is lost in his esoteric world of thesaurus that data mining of selective press articles from the internet qualifies as research”.

Shashi Tharoor had in his tweet pointed out the ordeal of passengers amid flight delays for up to 12 hours, leading them to eat meals on the tarmac, in the background of the “sorry state of affairs of India's aviation sector”.

Citing several media reports, Tharoor criticised the Union Aviation Ministry and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for not being able to upgrade the CAT III-B to the CAT III-C category, which would allow pilots to land flights even at zero visibility. He also targeted the government for failing to ensure pilots flying to Delhi were trained to land on CAT III-B runways.

Calling Shashi Tharoor an “arm-chair critic”, Jyotiraditya Scindia posted a series of tweets that the BJP MP called “actual facts”.

Shashi Tharoor, citing new reports, pointed out that the Delhi airport had plummeted into chaos. He pointed out that the “Modi government began maintenance work on one of the two CAT III-B runways (in Delhi airport) in September 2023, fully aware that it would not be ready for the winter!”

To this Jyotiraditya Scindia replied, “The maintenance was taken on top priority to be completed by 15th December before the onset of the fog season. However, due to pollution incidents and enforcement of GRAP-IV in Delhi, the recarpeting got delayed, resulting in a delay of one month in its commissioning. The revamped RWY is getting operational this week”. 

"Even worse, a crane from some other construction work was blocking the operation of CAT III-B on one runway, even after repairs were complete. Delhi Airport flagged this over 10 days ago, on Jan 5th, but no action was taken,” Shashi Tharoor said, raising the issue.

To this Scindia jibed, “The crane was being used for the construction of another critical infrastructure project - the Dwarka Expressway”.

Scindia, in his concluding tweet claimed, “Under the NDA govt, along with Akasa, 5 new regional airlines have taken birth under the PM’s UDAN vision.” in reply to Tharoor's, “Once a highly competitive industry with many different airlines and cheap fares, now 90% of the market is controlled by just two groups. Market concentration anywhere and everywhere fosters high prices and poor customer service.”

According to the Delhi Airport Flight Information Display System, 120 flights were delayed and 53 cancelled, including domestic and international, due to fog on Wednesday.