Passengers stranded at Jammu airport following technical fault on runway

All flights of private airlines at Jammu airport were suspended due to some technical fault at the runway leaving hundreds of passengers stranded.

While airport officials said the Air India flight from Leh had landed at Jammu as per schedule at 9 am and taken off to Delhi half an hour later, sources said that a Go Air flight from Delhi returned after hovering over the airport for some time for want of clearance from the officials concerned. Even former Jammu Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who was scheduled to address National Conference workers convention at party headquarters in Jammu on Friday, had to cancel his programme as his flight from Valley got suspended.

Airport officials attributed the problem to lowering of runway’s category by the Indian Air Force. Pointing out that the Airport belongs to the IAF and airlines pay it the landing charges, they said that they came to know about “IAF making some amendments in pavements only Thursday evening’’.

“The private airlines have taken up the matter with the Director General Civil Aviation and we hope that flights will be restored soon,’’ a senior official in Jammu said.