Several flights to Leh (Ladakh) were on Tuesday diverted as the Leh Airport was closed for operations after an Indian Air Force (IAF) heavy-lifter C-17 Globemaster was facing technical difficulties on the runway.
According to reports, several passengers were stuck at the Leh, Delhi and other airports as flights were cancelled or diverted.
Tourist season having started, the Leh airport handles around 20 flights daily with more than 3,000 passengers arriving or departing from there. Domestic airlines such as IndiGo, Air India, SpiceJet and Vistara operate flights to and fro Leh every day.
The Leh Airport tweeted; “Due to some avoidable circumstances, today almost all flights were cancelled from IXL. Concerned agencies are continuously working on it to rectify the aforesaid circumstance and to make flights operational by tomorrow as per schedule. Further updates will be shared.”
Vistara and other airlines updated their passengers about the rerouting of their flights from Delhi this morning due to the runway closure. Most flights returned to Delhi, while some were diverted to Srinagar.
In a post on Twitter, Vistara said its flight UK601 from Delhi to Leh (DEL-IXL) was returning to Delhi airport due to runway restrictions at Leh and is expected to arrive in Delhi at 10am.