Agni fires up ire

CHENNAI: Passengers from Singapore and Malaysia who were looking forward to touching down in Chennai on Wednesday, were a disgruntled lot. If they were put off by the almost three-hour delays, attributed to the launch of the Agni-V long-range ballistic missile, they were furious when they landed and learnt that the test had been postponed. “This is unacceptable,” fumed a passenger who arrived by an Air India Express flight that was scheduled to land at 11 am but made it only at 2.30 pm. “We were told quite late, which is very suspicious, as these launches are decided well in advance, aren’t they?” asked Mridula, who was luckier as her Jet Airways flight that was supposed to land at 11.15 am made it a little earlier, at 1.45 pm. The launch from the Wheeler Islands off the Odisha coast had been delayed by a day due to “inclement weather”. Other flights that were delayed were an AI flight, a Jet Airways flight from Kuala Lumpur and an AirAsia flight from Malaysia —scheduled to land around 5 pm, it reportedly touched down only after 11 pm.