Kolkata (West Bengal): Honeybees descended on two Vistara aircrafts on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning at the Calcutta airport, causing delays. Water cannons had to be used to drive the swarms away, officials said.
On both occasions, the bees were detected before passengers had boarded the flights, said Vistara officials. Both flights — around 150 passengers had booked seats on each — were operated with Airbus A320Neo aircraft.
On Sunday, Vistara staff detected the bees moments before passengers were to board the flight that was to leave for Delhi at 5 pm.
“We detected the large swarm of bees on the front right side of the aircraft just before boarding was to start. The aircraft had been parked in a remote bay since the previous night. The Sunday afternoon flight to Delhi was its first operation of the day,” said a Vistara official.
Airport officials had to call fire tenders to drive away the bees with water cannons.
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“Although no bee could enter the aircraft, the airline staff had to do fumigation as a safety measure,” said an airport official. This delayed the take-off by an hour.
Again, on Monday morning, a swarm of bees settled on a Port Blair-bound aircraft. “This time, too, the bees were detected before passengers boarded the flight. Again, fire tenders were called and a water cannon was used to drive the bees away,” said the official.
The Port Blair flight, too, was delayed by about an hour.
