The closure of Pakistan air space resulted in 12 flights arriving at and departing from Delhi being cancelled on Thursday.

The flights affected by the closure of Pakistan air space included the SpiceJet flight from and to Kabul and the Fin Air flight. Pakistan closed its airspace to all international airlines on Wednesday forcing most global airlines to take diversion. The closure is expected to last till mid-night Thursday.

Meanwhile, Air India flights to New York and Chicago operated over Sharjah to their final destinations on Thursday, an airline spokesperson said. Normally, Indian carriers and also global airlines operating to and from Europe and the US to India fly over Pakistan and onwards to their final destinations.

The Lufthansa group has said that in addition to its routes to India, connections to Bangkok and Singapore were also affected. “We are already preparing adjusted routings and will increase the amount of additional fuel in the event of delays. Some traffic rights for the new routing must also be secured. Overall, it is to be expected that there will be hardly any major impact on flight operations,” the airline said without getting into specifics of how much delay the India-bound flights could have.

United Airlines said that it will continue operating its flights between New York/Newark and Delhi and Mumbai beginning this evening. The airline gave no details about why its flight from India to the US was cancelled on Wednesday.

“Customers travelling on these flights will experience extended flight times due to a change in our normal flight path,” the airline said in a statement.

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