Flight services back to normal

Air India resumed its daily flights to Paris and Frankfurt besides New York and Chicago. Its stranded flight from Frankfurt reached Delhi during the day via Egypt.

Air India officials said it would operate its Delhi-London, Delhi-Frankfurt and Amritsar-Toronto flights from Thursday.

Jet Airways also resumed its flights to London from Delhi and Mumbai, while Lufthansa restarted its services to Munich and Amsterdam from Delhi and Air France to Munich and Paris.

According to latest government figures, about 3,000 passengers who had booked for America and Europe on Air India were stranded in Delhi, around 1,300 in Amritsar and about 2,300 passengers in Mumbai. These numbers are expected to come down significantly after normal operations start on Thursday. Jet Airways has already cleared its backlog for USA/Canada via Athens, but 6,000 of its passengers for Europe are stranded in Mumbai and Delhi.

A Jet Airways spokesman said the airliner would resume full flight operations to and from Mumbai and Delhi to London Heathrow following the opening of the airport, and also resume its flights to and from the United States and Canada via its hub in Brussels with immediate effect.

The airline has also announced that it would allow passengers to cancel or reschedule their travel plans at no penalty till April 27 as a goodwill gesture. Meanwhile, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimated that the Icelandic volcano crisis cost airlines more than $1.7 billion in lost revenue till Tuesday.