Flights to Europe cancelled, Mumbai and Delhi airports struggle to cope with crowds of stranded passengers

Flights to Europe cancelled, Mumbai and Delhi airports struggle to cope with crowds of stranded passengers

As volcanic ash clouds restricted air traffic over Europe, lakhs of flyers were left stranded in the country and other parts of the world. About 900 were left in the lurch at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport.

Flights to the UK, North America and some European cities remained cancelled yesterday and seemed unlikely to resume today.

Those with travel bookings are now exploring other options as the situation does not seem to have improved since a volcano erupted in Iceland on Tuesday and the jet stream carried the ash plume over to Europe.

At the international airport in Mumbai, most of the 900 stranded were Jet Airways flyers. They gathered outside the airline office at the airport and demanded priority booking on other flights without a European stop-over.

There were aeroplane parking problems too as flights of Indian and foreign airlines did not take off. At the Mumbaiu00a0 airport two aircraft were even parked on a taxiway.

In Delhi, many flying west for business or pleasure cancelled their trip.

"With Indian cities witnessing high temperatures, bookings had shot up for Europe. Now people are cancelling," said Manoj Kumar of Travel House in Delhi.

Rajji Rai, president, Travel Agents Association of India , said, "The travel industry was just picking up pace this year. If the problem continues for some time the industry is going to be affectedu00a0 badly."

Detour for PM

The ash clouds have forced a detour in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's return journey after his US and Germany visit. The PM's special aircraft will make a stopover at Johannesburg instead of Frankfurt. He is to reach Delhi this afternoon.

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