The Indian Air Force has withdrawn its order of closing down the Jammu airport for all flights from October 1 to 15. This comes as a major relief for commuters and various airlines that had earlier stopped booking for these 15 days.
The resurfacing work of the runway was supposed to be undertaken for two weeks from October 1 but as per reports, the intervention by Ministry of Defence has helped in reviewing the decision.
The State administration and Airport Authority of India (AAI) had forwarded a request to look into the matter considering the upcoming holiday season in October. The decision was thus taken to continue the resurfacing of the Jammu Airport runway during the night hours to avoid any inconvenience in the smooth operations of the airlines.
Around 24 commercial flights of various air carriers operate on an average from Jammu Airport. Thus, the suspension for 2 weeks would have incurred losses.
Particularly, due to abrogation of Article 370 and forthcoming festival season in October, the state administration was in consultation with IAF discussing alternate routes for VVIP visits but nothing seemed to have worked considering the prevailing situation in J&K.
