After 32 airports reopen, some flights cancelled

NEW DELHI: All the 32 airports in north, west and central India that were closed for commercial operations since May 7 reopened at 10.30am Monday. Accordingly, airlines started resuming operations to their network stations in these 32 places from Monday itself and expect to restore the suspended 350-400 daily flights in the next few days.

However, amid drone intrusions over the border regions of J&K, Rajasthan and Punjab on Monday evening, IndiGo cancelled flights to and from Jammu, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Leh, Srinagar and Rajkot for Tuesday.

Among the 32 airports to resume operations are Srinagar, Jammu, Leh, Chandigarh, Amritsar, Bikaner, Hindon, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Kandla, Kishangarh, Kullu (Bhuntar), Ludhiana, Rajkot (Hirasar) and Shimla.

IndiGo 6E 2247 Delhi-Jammu was among the first resumed flights when it took off from IGIA at 6.34pm Monday. "Flight operation was smoothly conducted at Jammu airport (Monday)! IndiGo 6E 2247 landed from Delhi & return flight 6E 5642 departed for Delhi," Jammu airport said on X. IndiGo also resumed its Delhi-Chandigarh and Delhi-Amritsar flights on Monday. "Over the course of the next few days more flights will resume gradually across the network," the airline said.

Air India said it will "progressively resume flights to and from Jammu, Srinagar, Leh, Jodhpur, Amritsar, Bhuj, Jamnagar, Chandigarh and Rajkot starting Tuesday. Bookings for these sectors are now open."

Air India Express said it would start resuming operations to the previously closed airports on Tuesday (May 13) with Hindon-Bengaluru, Jammu-Delhi, Jammu-Srinagar, and Srinagar-Delhi. Hindon-Mumbai is scheduled to resume from Wednesday and "reinstatement of other flights, including international services from Amritsar, is expected to follow from May 15", the airline said, adding it will "gradually reinstate flight operations from previously closed airports following the lifting of notice to airmen by the authorities".

Other airlines also said they would resume flights to the cities.

"Flight services to and from Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport, Chandigarh, have resumed as of 10.30am on May 12. Passengers are advised to check... for updated schedules," said Chandigarh airport.