In the wake of the flight disruption in Europe due to ash spewing from an Icelandic volcano, officials of major Indian carriers today held meetings to decide on diversion or cancellation of their flights.

Officials of Kingfisher Airlines, Jet Airways and Air India held separate meetings to take a decision on their flight schedules as hundreds of flights continued to be grounded for the second day today in the UK, Ireland and the northern parts of Europe.

The three Indian carriers have been asked by the Civil Aviation Ministry to draw up alternate routes to and from North America over the Mediterranean and the Atlantic and also to Western Europe, official sources said.

The airlines and the Indian authorities were seeking permission to have technical halts to pick up and drop passengers from Athens, Rome, Cairo and airports in unaffected European cities, they said.

However, no firm decision has yet been taken but the situation was being “very closely monitored”, they said.

Even though some quarters described the flight cancellations as “a massive over reaction by badly prepared safety regulators”, there has been no blanket ban on flights as was imposed during eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano in April last year that left millions stranded.

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