A Chennai-bound private airline carrying Kerala Governor Justice P Sathasivam and Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan halted for nearly 20 minutes at the city airport today.

They were going to Chennai from Thiruvananthapuram to pay homage to late Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa.

As the landing time of President Pranab Mukherjee’s flight to Chennai happened to coincide with the Thiruvananthapuram flight, the latter was diverted to Coimbatore and landed here at around 2 pm, police said. After getting the green signal, the flight left for Chennai around 2.20 pm.