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Neeraj Bagga
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, March 26
Five flights, including two cancelled, have been affected from Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport after Pakistan closed its airspace.
However, cancellation of Air India’s Delhi-Amritsar-Birmingham and Turkmenistan’s Amritsar-Ashgabat-Birmingham flights is causing more inconvenience to passengers, majority of them NRIs and their relatives.
Airport Director Manoj Chansoria said, “As per schedule with them, these flights will remain cancelled till March 31.” The airlines pulled out these flights after Pakistan closed its airspace following the Indian airstrike at Balakot.
After a gap of eight years and much lobbying by holy city-based politicians, the national carrier had resumed non-stop flights on the route in February last year. Only to be re-routed again as Pakistan closed its airspace in response to the Indian airstrike on February 27.
An NRI, Charanjit Singh Gumtala, said, “A large number of Sikh diaspora reside in Birmingham and areas around it and the AI’s flight was the only direct link between Birmingham and the holy city.” A majority of the passengers travelling in the flight are from Punjab. They are to now put in 40 minutes more in flying to Delhi and then 40 minutes on the return flight.
The AI had suspended its direct operations on this route in 2010. Earlier, it had introduced the maiden flight on this route in 2005. All three flights to Dubai, being operated by SpiceJet, Indigo and Air India Express, are taking longer route to avoid Pakistan airspace as they fly over the Arabian Sea via Mumbai.
A passenger, Bhawna Dhawan, who works as a beautician in Dubai, said re-routing of the flight increased travel time and it would add to travel inconvenience and discomfort. Officials of the AI here said any change in the present flight schedule would depend upon the head office and bilateral relations between India and Pakistan.
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