Air India said it would resume its three flights a week to the Indian capital New Delhi, via Doha and Mumbai, from February 1.

The airline claimed the flights had been suspended since January 7 due to operational constraints, but sources told our sister newspaper GDN it was because of a shortage of pilots.

However, Bahrain and Jordan area manager Meenakshi Mallik yesterday said the problems had been resolved.

'We are very happy with the resumption of flights since we have been doing well on the sector,' she said.

'Since we began operations last summer, we have had huge loads of passengers.

'All airlines have some constraints from time to time, but we can say these have been now sorted out.'

Sources earlier told the GDN that expatriate pilots manning the routes were having visa problems in India, which would take several weeks to sort out - meaning the flights could not operate.

However, they claimed the cancellation had not had any major impact on the carrier since it was a 'relatively quiet' season on that route.

The flights, every Monday, Thursday and Saturday, will operate from Bahrain via Doha and Mumbai, departing from Bahrain at 3.30pm each day.-TradeArabia News Service