AI, Jet, Kingfisher cancel flights to Europe

Air India, Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines on Monday cancelled their flights to the UK and other parts of Europe in the wake of huge clouds of volcanic ash emanating from Iceland.

Air India and Jet would, however, operate their flights to the US and Canada by taking a diversion, sources in the airlines said.

An Air India spokesman said the airline will operate its flights from Delhi to New York and New York to Delhi and also Mumbai-New York and New York-Mumbai flights with a diversion through a polar route. A polar route refers to an aircraft route across the uninhabited polar ice cap region.

Jet Airways has also started its Delhi-Toronto and Mumbai-New York flights with a technical stop over at Athens in Greece.

Some airlines have started talks with various foreign missions in India to take care of the stranded passengers from those countries.

Maintaining that they had already provided full accommodation and other facilities to hundreds of passengers for past 2-3 days, they also said they were finding it difficult to continue this facility any longer.

Airline sources also said the carriers could not be held liable for disruption of flight operations under to such circumstances.