Airlines resume flights as ash cloud recedes

As European skies cleared up, airlines resumed normal services to and from Heathrow and other airports on Wednesday, a day after they operated some flights on partial opening of airports across the continent.

Thousands of passengers have been stranded at airports around the world since April 15 as Icelandic volcanic ash forced many European airports to close their airspaces.

But even as airlines announced resumption of flights, fliers like Nayana Dutia, booked on a Mumbai-London Jet Airways flight, were not sure till the last minute whether their flights would take off.

On Tuesday, Dutia’s flight was cancelled after passengers had boarded the aircraft. “Yesterday, we boarded the flight, but it got cancelled. This time we think we will make it to London,” he said. Dutia’s flight took off from Mumbai at 1.35 pm on Wednesday.

Several other flights left and reached Indian airports as per schedule — not just to and from Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, Vienna and other continental airports, but London’s Heathrow too.

All international carriers, including Air India (AI), Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines, Lufthansa, British Airways, Swiss International Airlines, Austria Airlines and Singapore Airlines, have fully resumed operations to Europe.

A statement issued by the ministry of civil aviation said: “AI has resumed its daily flights to Paris and Frankfurt besides New York and Chicago. Jet Airways has resumed its flights to London from Delhi and Mumbai.”

It said Jet’s flight to Heathrow from Mumbai departed on Wednesday afternoon and AI’s stranded flight from Frankfurt reached Delhi via Egypt.

Till Wednesday, AI’s backlog of passengers in India for destinations in the UK, US and Europe was 7,000. Jet had around 6,000 passengers stranded in Mumbai and Delhi.

“Iceland’s Met office has reported lesser amount of (volcanic) eruptions since yesterday (Tuesday) and VAC-London has reported diminution ash concentration over the European airspace,” the ministry press note stated.

Statements issued by other carriers also said services to Europe would be started in full swing on Wednesday.

A spokeswoman of the Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) said a British Airways (BA) flight could not take off on Wednesday but after midnight, Air France and Lufthansa flights were expected to fly out from the airport on schedule.

All airlines have requested passengers to check their flight status through call centres or airline websites before heading for the airport.

They have also opened bookings for next week’s flights but said stranded passengers would be given first preference over new bookings.