India-Europe air traffic resumes; AI, Jet launch flights

New Delhi, Apr 21 (PTI) Air traffic between India and
Europe on Wednesday resumed after a week of disruption caused
by volcanic ashes, with Air India and Jet Airways operating
flights in both directions to fly home stranded passengers.
According to official estimates, around 30,000 air
travellers are stranded in India, primarily in Delhi and
Mumbai. The number came down from 41,000 due to opening up of
operations to the US and Canada two days ago.
Air India began its European operations on Wednesday,
launching its dailies from Delhi to Paris and Frankfurt.
It would resume normal services from tomorrow on
sectors like Delhi-London-Delhi, Delhi-Frankfurt-Delhi,
Mumbai-London-Mumbai, Delhi-New York-Delhi, Mumbai-New York-
Mumbai, Mumbai-Chicago-Mumbai, Amritsar-London-Toronto-London-
Amritsar and Ahmedabad-Mumbai-Newark-Mumbai.
Air India announced an additional Mumbai-London-Mumbai
flight on Friday to clear the backlog of passengers.
Jet Airways too resumed its flights to London from
Delhi and Mumbai and relaunched its hub operations at
Brussels. It would now connect Newark and Toronto with Delhi,
Mumbai and Chennai through Brussels.
The private carrier also planned to launch an
additional Mumbai-London-Mumbai service soon.
Kingfisher Airlines, which had cancelled its services
for Wednesday, would commence flights between Delhi, Mumbai
and London from Thursday.
Air India's plane which was stuck in Frankfurt,
arrived here today via Cairo carrying stranded passengers.
Two of its Boeing 777-300s, caught in London, flew out to
Toronto and Amritsar.
According to latest government figures, about 3,000
passengers who had booked for America and Europe on Air India
were stranded in Delhi, around 1,300 in Amritsar and about
2,300 passengers in Mumbai. These numbers are expected to come
down significantly after normal operations start on Wednesday.
Jet Airways, which operated its flight via Athens, had
cleared its backlog for the US and Canada. On Tuesday, Jet had
operated to the US and Canada via Athens.
A total of 6,000 passengers booked on Jet Airways for
Europe are stranded in Mumbai and Delhi, official data shows.
German carrier Lufthansa and Air France had on Tuesday
launched their services by operating flights to Munich,
Amsterdam and Paris.
Six days of air traffic disruption in the European
airspace, caused by the spread of volcanic ash from Iceland,
has led to an estimated revenue loss of USD 1.7 billion to the
global aviation industry. PTI SMJ
AHM


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