Operations on hold for 3 hours at Amritsar airport

AMRITSAR/BATHINDA/DHARAMSHALA: Services at Amritsar’s Sri Guru Ram Das International Airport were suspended for nearly three hours, triggering panic among passengers. However, there wasn’t much chaos as many airlines had either diverted or canceled their flights to and from

Amritsar

.


Airport director Manoj Chansoria said services were suspended from 10.45am to 1.30pm, adding that

operations

resumed after the directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) withdrew its order to shut down the airport.

An Amritsar-bound passenger from Singapore, Narender Sharma, told TOI over the phone from there that they had asked their airlines to fly them to another Indian airport on Thursday. A Delhi-bound passenger who was on a business tour to Amritsar, Rajneesh Sharma, said he hired a taxi to travel to Delhi at double the normal fare. “I can understand the urgency to suspend airport services, after all it is for our own security,” he said.

Amid the escalating tension between India and Pakistan, the flight from Bathinda airport to Jammu was cancelled on Wednesday. The airport, however, continued to be operational.

Only two flights operate from Bathinda airport — one is for Jammu and other for Delhi. The flight to Jammu is daily whereas fight to Delhi runs four days a week — Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. As there was no flight for Delhi on Wednesday, the lone flight to Jammu was cancelled due to closing down of

Jammu airport

.

Bathinda airport director Shobha Bhardwaj said, “As of now there is no direction to close down the operations at the airport. There was no flight to Delhi on Wednesday whereas the flight to Jammu was cancelled.”

Meanwhile, flights from Delhi to Kangra airport were also cancelled on Wednesday. Even chief minister Jai Ram Thakur who was fly from Delhi to Kangra on a chopper had to cancel his tour. Kishore Kumar, director of the airport, said, “Only one flight operated in the morning hours. But afterwards all flights were cancelled from Delhi.”