rediff.com: IA to resume filights to Nepal

Indian Airlines Thursday resumed regular service to Nepal after a five month-suspension following a Christmas-eve hijacking, officials said in New Delhi. Indian Airlines flight IC 813, carrying 210 people, took off from New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport at 11.15 am (05.45 GMT) amid tight security at the airport.

"It is an hour-long haul and the Indian Airlines Airbus 300 will return to Delhi carrying passengers from Nepal at 3.15 pm (09.45 GMT)," said an airlines official.

"We will re-activate the Calcutta to Kathmandu flight service on Friday," he added.

As of Thursday, 130 people had booked seats on the Indian Airlines Airbus 320 scheduled to fly out of the eastern port city of Calcutta on Friday. India froze all flights to Nepal after an Indian Airlines Kathmandu-New Delhi flight with more than 150 people on board was hijacked on December 24 by five heavily-armed Pakistanis and forced to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.

The hijacking ended on December 31 at Kandahar after India freed three pro-Kashmir militants in a swap for the hostages on board the plane. One Indian hostage was killed during the crisis.

It took over five months to resume the flights as India and Nepal bickered over the safety measures at Kathmandu airport. India had suggested deploying its own personnel at the Nepalese airport, but Kathmandu rejected the proposal and agreed to step up its own security at the airport.

The flight suspension badly hit tourism in Nepal, which earns a major part of its revenue from holiday-seekers from neighbouring India, even though Royal Air Nepal maintained flights to and from India. In the first four months of the year the number of tourists arriving in Nepal by air fell by 7.9 percent, for which tourism officials said the Indian Airlines flight ban was almost entirely to blame.

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IA resumes flights to Nepal: AFP