Order on shutdown of airspace in North India withdrawn, air services to resume

New Delhi: Government lifted airport shutdown notification hours after ordering temporary suspension of at least ten airports in northern India.

NOTAM (Notice to Airmen to alert aircraft pilots of potential hazards along a flight route) has been withdrawn, flight operations will resume,  civil aviation regulator DGCA informed. All the flight operations will resume shortly however all flights to Kashmir scheduled for today stands canceled.

Several airports including Srinagar, Jammu, Leh, Amritsar, Pathankot, Gaggal, Dehradun, Shimla, Bhuntar and Chandigarh were closed for civilian operation, as the airports` facilities were being used by the Indian Air Force (IAF).

Mumbai airport had cancelled flights to all 4 sectors that it operates across Jammu, Srinagar, Amritsar and Chandigarh. Consequently, no commercial operation would take place in these airports. Several flights to and from these airports were either been diverted or put on hold.

Passengers at Amritsar airport were stranded as flight operations were suspended.

Pakistan also immediately stopped its domestic and international flight operations from Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad, Sialkot and Islamabad airports.

International flights that transit between Indian and Pakistani airspace were also being affected. Some flights were returning to origin, while others appeared to be seeking alternate routing.

In a befitting response to Pakistan over their failure to control terrorism on home-soil, India bombed and destroyed Jaish-e-Mohammed's (JeM) biggest training camp in Balakot in Pakistan's restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, nearly 80-km from the Line of Control (LoC) early Tuesday. The pre-dawn operation eliminated a "very large number" of terrorists, trainers and senior commanders.

JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar later confirmed that the air strikes did take place at the terror camp at Balakot but denied any damage to his cadre or family members.

India's strike came 11 days after a JeM suicide bomber killed at least 40 CRPF troopers in the Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir on February 14. This is the first time that the IAF crossed into Pakistan after the 1971 war.

With Agency Inputs