Airlines play saviour in Jammu and Kashmir

MUMBAI: India's travel companies and airlines are facing massive cancellations on trips to Srinagar well into the middle of October, spooked by furious floods in the state that has claimed more than 100 lives, caused irreparable damage and made communication almost impossible.

But Indian carriers, especially low-cost airlines are trying their best to help the people from the state by waiving cancellation fees, offering low fares out of Srinagar and flying plenty of relief material pro bono for others and on their own into the region.

"We have seen a very big jump in cancellations in the last 2-3 days: triple or possibly quadruple (compared to last week)," Samyukth Sridharan, president and chief operating officer of Cleartrip told ET. He added that people are scared enough to cancel bookings till the long weekend starting October 2, for which Srinagar was one of the top five popular destinations this year.

Manoj Samuel, director at Riya Travels, one of India's biggest offline travel companies also said that entire groups have cancelled bookings to Srinagar in the past few days. Thousands of people are still stranded in Srinagar as the worst flood in 60 years still has most of the city submerged in water. The Indian army and air force have intensified relief operations and have managed to evacuate more than 6,000 people from the destination.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced Rs 1,000 crore of special assistance to the state and Rs 5 crore as relief fund for the flood- affected people in Srinagar. Corporates have also pitched in. Anand Mahindra, vice-chairman of the Mahindra Group recently tweeted that his group has pledged Rs 2 crore for the relied fund. Following the DGCA’s mandate on September 8, airlines have waived off charges for passengers cancelling trips to Srinagar.

"Jet Airways has further extended the waiver for refund/ reissue penalties on all confirmed tickets issued for travel into/ out of Srinagar till September 14, 2014," said a statement from the airline.

"We are offering full refunds or rescheduling trips for customers who have booked our holiday packages to J&K until September 15th," said Sharat Dhall, president of Yatra. But airlines are doing more. Indi-Go, for example, is carrying medicines and blankets on all its flights. "500 sandwiches and 500 bottles of water have been sent with almost every flight. These will be air dropped by IAF helicopters in the worst affected areas," said a spokesperson for the airline.

Including that so far 3,297 kgs of relief supplies have been sent to Srinagar. The airline has delayed flights so it can rescue as many passengers as possible from the flood hit area. It has even delayed flights from Delhi to carry relief items to Srinagar SpiceJet is carrying 5.5 tonnes of relief materials free of cost to Srinagar everyday, a spokesperson said.

It has especially deputed executives to make for smooth travel for passengers trying to get out of the city. A spokesperson from Air India said it has two aircraft on standby so they can be deputed for rescue operations into Srinagar.