Air India, Jet Airways resume flights to Europe

After a gap of six days, national carrier Air India Wednesday resumed its daily flights to Paris and Frankfurt and private airline Jet Airways winged its way to London from Delhi and Mumbai.

“Air India’s stranded flight from Frankfurt has reached Delhi today via Egypt. Air India will operate its Delhi-London and Delhi-Frankfurt flights tomorrow. It will also operate its Amritsar-Toronto flight from tomorrow,” the Ministry of Civil Aviation said in a statement.

According to the ministry, a Jet flight to Heathrow from Mumbai departed this afternoon after the airport in London was opened to air traffic at 2 a.m. (IST) Wednesday.

The airlines have not been flying to Europe since April 15 after an ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano spread to Europe and disrupted traffic.

“The Iceland Met office has reported lesser amount of eruptions since yesterday (Tuesday) and authorities in London have reported diminution in ash concentration over the European airspace,” the statement said.

Jet Airways is learnt to have cleared its backlog for the U.S. and Canada via Athens. But 6,000 passengers booked on the airline for Europe are still stranded in Mumbai and Delhi, the official statement said.

Air India and Jet Airways began operating to the U.S. and Canada via Cairo and Athens from Tuesday.

Lufthansa too has begun operations to Munich and Amsterdam from Delhi. Air France has resumed flight to Munich and Paris.

The ministry said about 3,000 passengers in Delhi, 2,300 in Mumbai and 1,300 passengers in Amritsar booked on Air India for the U.S. and Europe are stranded.