Two sensitive pieces of equipment -- the Instrument Landing System and the Very-high Omni-directional Range (or radar/VOR) -- have been out of order at the airport for the past fortnight, according to senior airport officials. These state-of-the-art pieces of machinery, installed along the 1.5 km-long runway, guide incoming aircraft with accurate signals. But since they have been non-operational, pilots can only depend on their own eyesight in landing aircraft.

Needless to say, the weather conditions now are particularly disadvantageous for this sort of an adventure. As a result, three incoming flights have been cancelled since Wednesday.

According to sources, Jet Airways' flight number 343 arrived at Vadodara on Wednesday evening, when visibility was lower than what is technically known as ``minimum weather condition''. Since the VOR and the ILS -- installed last year at a cost of Rs 1 crore -- which allows aeroplanes to land even if the visibility is less than 4,000 metres, were not working, the plane had to go back.

``Since those pieces of equipment weren't working and the flight had to be turned back, we cancelled Thursday's flights too'', said an airport official.

``It is not the money that we've lost in the past two days that hurts as much as the damage to our credibility'', said a senior official of Jet Airways (Gujarat region).

But by no means was Jet the only airlines to be affected. Sources among the AAI Air Traffic Controllers told Express Newsline that the Indian Airlines Mumbai-Ahmedabad-Vadodara-Mumbai flight (IC-689) could not land in the city and had to go back to Mumbai from Ahmedabad because of the same reason.

The morning IA flight from New Delhi was cancelled on Thursday, while Gujarat Airways flights, too, ran at least an hour behind schedule.

While sources said the Airports Authority of India regional headquarters had been informed of the Vadodara airport's disability, IA Station Manager B S Dhani refused to talk to Express Newsline, maintaining that he was not authorised to talk to the Press. Similar comments came from N K Sinha, senior aerodrome officer, AAI, Vadodara.

Mumbai-based AAI regional chief V K Kalra, however, said he was aware of the malfunctioning systems and had already put his deputy on the job. ``The accuracy of the two pieces of equipment will be put right soon'', he said, adding that the flaws had been noticed during AAI calibration flights in the past fortnight.

``Corrective measures are taking time since they have to be precise and failsafe'', he added.

In the meantime, passengers coming to the city have to bear with the inconvenience and airlines have to keep totting up the losses.