More AI flights to clear stranded passengers

AIRINDIA
New Delhi, Apr 24 (PTI) Air India would operate several
extra flights to London, Frankfurt and Chicago from Sunday
to take home passengers stranded at various airports due to
the week-long closure of European airspace caused by volcanic
ash from Iceland.
The national carrier, which has been flying additional
flights to clear the backlog, would operate a Mumbai-London-
Delhi flight with a Boeing 777-300 ER aircraft on Sunday and a
Delhi-London-Mumbai service on Monday.
Similarly, it would operate an additional service on the
Mumbai-Hyderabad-Frankfurt-Chicago route on Wednesday and its
return flight, an airline spokesperson said.
The closure of airspace had resulted in seven planes of
Air India getting stuck at various airports across the globe
during the week. While two each remained parked at London and
New York, one each were stranded at Frankfurt, Newark and
Chicago.
The operating crew of these planes had also remained
stranded at these airports for almost a week.
With focus on retrieving these planes and crew soon after
the European airspace opened, the aircraft from Chicago was
brought to India via Cairo, which was a technical halt for
refuelling.
Notwithstanding low loads on the return sectors from
Europe, the airline continued its operations, the spokesperson
said.
Non-stop flights to the US were operated through the
Egyptian capital, instead of passing through its European hub
in Frankfurt. This, he said, was done to avoid the payload
penalty caused by the need to uplift extra fuel of nearly 19
tonnes on the non-stop flights.
As a result on one occasion, passengers booked on the
Chicago flight to Delhi from Frankfurt were put on other
airlines like Lufthansa or accommodated in next day's
terminator flight on the Delhi-Frankfurt-Delhi sector. These
terminator services from Frankfurt were never cancelled after
the airspace opened up, he said.
The technical halt at Cairo lasted four days from April 19
to 22. PTI ARC
PRS


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