11k fly out of Srinagar on Wednesday, 2k more than a normal day

NEW DELHI: About 11,000 people - mostly peak summer season holidayers - are expected to have flown out of Srinagar on Wednesday, a day after the Pahalgam attack . Airport sources say Srinagar on an average sees 52 aircraft arrivals and as many departures daily with 10,000-12,000 passengers (about half of them arrivals and half departures) in non-peak and 16,000-18,000 in the current peak season, reports Saurabh Sinha.

Srinagar Airport , which handles flights from 6 am to 10 pm, on Wednesday saw 9,251 passengers fly out on 47 flights till 7pm. With several more flights in the remaining three hours, this number is expected to swell further by anywhere up to 2,000.

Given the exodus, airlines, including Air India, IndiGo and AI Express, operated seven extra flights on Wednesday to fly out people from there. Srinagar-bound flights saw a large number of passenger cancellations.

The rush to fly out caused fares for flights out of Srinagar to briefly rise to as high as Rs 32,000 for a one-way journey to Delhi, prompting govt to step in.