Days after India announced the temporary closure of 32 airports across northern and western India for civil aircraft operations amid tensions with Pakistan, the order was cancelled Monday with operations likely to resume soon.
The order comes days after India and Pakistan decided to On Saturday, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said the “DGMO (Director General of Military Operations) of Pakistan called up DGMO (of India) at 3.35 pm. They agreed that both sides will stop all firing and military action from land, air and sea from 5 pm onwards”, although drone sightings and loud explosions were heard in several areas close to the border on Saturday night.
According to the initial order, the airports were to be shut till 5:29 am India time on May 15, according to a series of Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs) by India’s aviation authorities.
Following India’s precision strikes at nine “terror sites” in Pakistan as part of ‘Operation Sindoor’, New had announced closure of around 25 airports — close to the India-Pakistan border or housed at key Indian Air Force bases — initially till Saturday 5:29 am in order to keep civilian air traffic away from potential harm.
However, as tensions escalated and Pakistan resorted to large-scale drone and missile attacks at Indian military installations in northern and western India, and India’s proportionate military response to Pakistan, the temporary closure of airports was extended at least till May 15 morning.
Barring a few, the majority of these airports are located at defence airfields, with some seeing only a handful of commercial flights each day. The affected airports included Srinagar, , Leh, Amritsar, , Ambala, , Jodhpur, Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Uttarlai, Rajkot, Bhuj, Jamnagar, Dharamshala, Bathinda, Patiala, Pathankot, , Kishangarh, Hindon, Porbandar, Mundra, and Kandla, among others.
