Flights resume from Srinagar after 3 days

Ishfaq Tantry

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, November 26

After three days of hiatus, air traffic resumed from the Srinagar airport today, with stranded passengers, mostly tourists, heaving a sigh of relief.

With improved visibility and foggy conditions easing out, almost all flights, barring two which were scheduled to operate from the Srinagar international airport, were able to either take off or land.

“The flight operations resumed from the Srinagar airport today as the visibility improved considerably,” said RK Shinde, Director of the Airport Authority of India in Srinagar.

He said almost all airlines which had operations at the Srinagar airport, barring two, performed their routine flights operations, which helped clear the backlog.

By 4:30 pm, about 60 flights belonging to different airlines had already either landed or taken off with passengers on board from the Srinagar international airport.

Air services from the Srinagar airport were badly hit since Monday as dense fog enveloped the entire Kashmir valley.

For three consecutive days, both private as well as government-run airlines were not able to operate from the Srinagar airport due to foggy weather conditions and poor visibility.

During the past three days, the passengers who had arrived at the airport had to face disappointment in view of the cancellation of scheduled flights. It had been learnt that most of the airlines had reimbursed passengers. Many had rescheduled their tickets.

The foggy weather conditions in the region were likely to show improvement over time as the meteorological authorities here predicted light rain accompanied by snow, which might help in a rise in night temperatures.