Special AI flights bring back stranded passengers from Leh

New Delhi: Air India today operated three special flights from Delhi to Leh bringing back 331 passengers stranded there after the Friday's cloudburst that left 145 people dead and over 500 missing.
"We operated three special flights on Delhi-Leh-Delhi sector today and flew back 331 passengers from Leh who were stranded there due to cloudburst," an Air India spokesperson said.
The Airline charged a single special fare of Rs 9000 instead of regular fare of Rs 11,661 from the passengers, he said. The flights had left Leh at 7.50, 11.05 and 11.40 this morning. Air India has decided to operate four special flights on Delhi-Leh-Delhi sector tomorrow, and one each additional flight on Jammu-Leh-Jammu sector and Srinagar-Leh-Srinagar sector. The flights will leave for Delhi at 5.25am, 5.30am, 8.15am and 9.15am tomorrow and the fare will be Rs 9000 only, the spokesperson said.
Since the tragedy, Air India has operated six special flights from Leh out of which five were on Delhi-Leh-Delhi sector and one on Jammu-Leh-Jammu sector and flew back a total number of 553 passengers to Delhi and 103 passengers to Jammu. Yesterday, the airline had deployed two Airbus 320 aircraft to bring passengers from Leh to Delhi and one from Leh to Jammu. The Civil Aviation ministry had yesterday asked Air India, Jet airways and Kingfisher airlines to operate three flights each to bring back the stranded passengers for today. The Ministry had also asked them not to charge exorbitant fare following the complaint from the air travellers. The Kingfisher airline today operated two flights from Leh to Delhi and brought back 290 tourists.
08/08/10 PTI/IBN Live

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Categories: airports aug 2010, NACIL Aug 2010