Quake fallout: Flights to Kathmandu hit

Flights to Kathmandu from India were hit today after a powerful earthquake rocked the central part of the Himalayan country with most of the airlines cancelling or putting on hold their operations due to closure of the ruway at the Tribhuvan International airport for a few hours.
Private carrier Jet Airways, which had cancelled its services on the Kathmandu-New Delhi-Kathmandu and Kathmandu- Mumbai sectors in the wake of the quake, later operated a flight from the Nepalese capital to New Delhi.
"The flight from Kathamandu with 162 passengers onboard departed for Delhi at 1555 hrs," a Jet Airways spokesperson said.

However, the airline's Kathmandu-bound flight from Mumbai was diverted to Lucknow.
Meanwhile, budget carrier IndiGo said it was expecting to resume flights to Kathmandu from tomorrow.
"IndiGo would resume operations to Kathamandu from tomorrow morning," IndiGo President Aditya Ghosh said.

SpiceJet, which operate two flights from the national capital to the land-locked country, said it has cancelled both its flights to Kathmandu from Delhi today. A decision on resumption of operations will be taken tomorrow, an airline official said.
The airline has also offered the aircraft's cargo-belly space to NGOs for transporting relief material to the Nepalese capital.
State-run Air India said it had put on hold two flights that were to operate from Delhi and Kolkata to the Nepalese capital.

"We operate three flights to Kathmandu. While the morning flight from Delhi operated as per the schedule, the two other services, one from Delhi and another from Kolkata are on hold as of now. We will operate them as soon as we get a nod from the aviation authorities in Kathmandu," an Air India spokesperson said.
Air India, Jet Airways, IndiGo and SpiceJet said they have decided to waive off the ticket cancellation charges for some time in view of the calamity.
A powerful 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal today, causing massive damage in Kathmandu and surrounding areas with strong tremors being felt in neighbouring countries.