Tumoil halts all flights to and from Kashmir

Srinagar: Owing to the present unrest in the valley and protest en-route to Srinagar International Airport and Awantipora Airbase, the Airport Authority of India on Tuesday suspended all flights to and from Kashmir for next three days.
This is for the first time after Kargil war in 1999 that the air taffic in Kashmri has been suspended following massive unrest. A top official of AIA said they had made a request to the state government to ensure the security of passengers a few days back, however, no response was received to the communiqué. “The government did not respond to our request,” he said. “We were forced to suspend the traffic for some days.”
Talking to Rising Kashmir, Director, Srinagar International Airport, V K Gupta said that 321 passengers of two flights (Spice Jet and Go-Air) on Monday were trapped at Awantipora airbase due to protests along the Jammu-Srinagar highway and also across the road to Srinagar International Airport." The stranded passengers were ferried back to their respective places safely but with a lot of difficulties as the civil administration had a tough time to manage the situation. So it was decided to suspend the air traffic for next three days. We also had to look after the safety of our passengers. Moreover, it was suspension also came in force after the concerned authorities asked for two more days to repair the runway at Srinagar airport," he said. The flights to and fro from Srinagar from past week were operating from Indian air force Airbase in Awantipora in South Kashmirr after the Srinagar International Airport was closed for air traffic on September 3 for two weeks to renovate the runway.
14/09/10 Ishfaq Ahmad Shah/Rising Kashmir

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Categories: airports Sep 2010