FOLLOWING the ceasefire understanding between India and Pakistan, New Delhi on Monday lifted the temporary closure of various airports in parts of northern and western India, making them available for regular civil flight operations.
Amid the major escalation in tensions with Pakistan last week, India had announced a temporary closure of 32 airports for civil aircraft operations till 5:29 am May 15, according to a series of Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs) issued on Friday by aviation authorities. Those NOTAMs were cancelled Monday morning with immediate effect.
Airlines said they were working to fully restore operations to and from the affected airports, with two IndiGo flights from Delhi to Jammu and Chandigarh operating on Monday evening.
Initially, IndiGo announced the resumption of Delhi-Chandigarh, Delhi-Jammu and Delhi-Amritsar flights from Monday evening. While the Delhi-Jammu and Delhi-Chandigarh flights operated without a hiccup, the airline’s Delhi-Amritsar flight turned back to the Capital midway after a precautionary blackout was enforced in Amritsar and a few other areas of Punjab, it is learnt. The airline did not comment on the reason for the flight diversion, but cancelled Tuesday’s flights to and from Jammu, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Leh, Srinagar, and Rajkot “in light of latest developments”, and keeping passengers’ “safety” as priority.
The closure of the 32 airports led to cancellation of over 300 flights a day, industry sources said. IndiGo, which is the country’s largest airline, alone saw over 160 flight cancellations a day due to the airport closures.
The affected airports included Srinagar, Jammu, Leh, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Ambala, Ludhiana, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Uttarlai, Rajkot, Bhuj, Jamnagar, Dharamshala, Bathinda, Patiala, Pathankot, Shimla, Kishangarh, Hindon, Porbandar, Mundra, and Kandla, among others. Barring a few, the majority of these airports are located in defence airfields, with some seeing only a handful commercial flights a day. For the past few days, there was almost no civilian aircraft activity north of Delhi — with the exception of Dehradun — and in much of Rajasthan and Gujarat, where some of the sensitive airports close to the India-Pakistan border and key Indian Air Force stations are located.
Among other airlines, Air India Express has announced the resumption of flights on four routes — Hindon–Bengaluru, Jammu–Delhi, Jammu–Srinagar, and Srinagar–Delhi — from Tuesday, and Hindon–Mumbai flight from Wednesday.
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In its press statement, Air India Express said: “Air India Express will gradually reinstate flight operations from previously closed airports, following the lifting of NOTAMs by the authorities… The reinstatement of other flights, including international services from Amritsar, is expected to follow from 15th May.”
Its parent Air India said that it will “progressively resume flights to and from Jammu, Srinagar, Leh, Jodhpur, Amritsar, Bhuj, Jamnagar, Chandigarh and Rajkot starting Tuesday”. Budget carrier Spicejet said that its teams were “actively working to resume normal flight operations at the earliest”.
In the wake of India’s precision strikes at nine terror infrastructure locations in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir as part of ‘Operation Sindoor’ in the early hours of Wednesday (May 7), New Delhi had announced the closure of around 25 airports close to the India-Pakistan border or housed at key Indian Air Force bases, initially till Saturday 5.29 am, to keep civilian air traffic away from potential harm. But with tensions escalating, the temporary closure was extended till May 15 morning and a few more airports were added to the list.