Srinagar, Jan 12:  The Air India stopped its Dubai flight operation from Srinagar International Airport, the only international destination being operated from here.
The airliner today sent an SMS to its passengers here reading: ‘Air India Express Flight IX 198/23 Jan (Dubai-Srinagar) cancelled due to operational reasons until 31 January 2010. You may kindly process full refund without any cancellation charges. Regret inconvenience’.
The move has raised huge criticism from the passengers and the business community here with many believing that the operations have been stopped with some “design.”
A group of passengers told Greater Kashmir that the cancellation had been highly troublesome for them. They alleged that it was done by some vested interests with a design to deprive the SIA of the international flight operations.
“We believe that the airliner is planning to stop the international flight operation from this airport,” they said.
“My aged parents had gone to Dubai and were returning back on January 23 by the same flight. Now they are being asked by the company to take back the money. This means that they have to go for alternate arrangement to reach here which will cause them a lot of trouble,” said Rauf Ahmad.
“If the company has really some operational problems, it could have utilized the services of Indian Airlines to bring the passengers to Delhi and onwards in a connected flight to Srinagar,” he added.

Lastupdate on : Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:00:00 IST