While most of the airlines cancelled their flights to UK, USA, Canada and northern Europe on April 17, Jet Airways obtained permission from the authorities to operate flights to the USA and Canada using Athens as transit points. Icelandic volcano Eyjafjoll continued to disrupt flights to the USA, UK and the Europe on the third day of its eruption. Airlines like Air India (AI) and Kingfisher cancelled their flights to UK, Paris, Frankfurt and so on. However, Jet Airways sought permission from the director general of civil aviation (DGCA) and other European government agencies to seek an alternate route to USA and Canada. “Jet airways has been given permission to fly through Athens in Greece as an alternate temporary transit point through Europe to Newark and Toronto,” said the spokesperson for Jet. As such on April 17 the airline operated flight 9W 227 Mumbai-Newark and flight 9W 229 Mumbai-Toronto with Athens as transit. On April 18 flight 9W 228 Mumbai-Newark at 02.20am and 9W 230 Delhi-Toronto will depart at 02.35am.
