No cancellation of flights: AIE

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 4: Air India Express (AIE) today said it has not cancelled any of its flights from Dubai to Kerala and Mangaluru but will be operating via Sharjah in the aftermath of the Emirates flight mishap.

Early today at 0300 AM Dubai authorities informed that 'narrow-body aircraft' operations will be shifted to Sharjah airport from Dubai, AIE sources told PTI. "We are informing our passengers through our call centres that whoever is coming from Dubai to Kerala should go to Sharjah to board the flight," the sources said.

"We will operate all services but on a delayed basis," he said. Meanwhile, Thiruvananthapuram Airport Director George Tharakkan said there will be no cancellations of flights from the airport to Dubai today.

Yesterday, while the Indigo-Thiruvananthapuram flight to Dubai and Fly Dubai airlines Thiruvananthapuram-Dubai flight was cancelled, Air India Express operated its flight from here by diverting the aircraft to Sharjah as the Dubai airport was closed.

Yesterday Indigo airline's Kochi-Dubai flight from Kochi at 6.40 PM had been cancelled, Fly Dubai's 2.50 AM flight to Dubai this morning has also been cancelled, Kochi airport sources said.

Three hundred people, mostly Indians, had a miraculous escape yesterday when a packed Emirates flight from Thiruvananthapuram to Dubai crash-landed and exploded on the runway at Dubai, shutting down one of the world's busiest airports and killing one of the firefighters.

The flight EK521 with 282 passengers, 226 of them Indians, and 18 crew members on board was involved in an accident at the Dubai international airport.

PTI