Bahrain Air, a leading low-cost carrier, is set to resume flights to a major city in the Indian state of Kerala tomorrow (April 19) after a landing rights dispute that grounded its newly-launched service was resolved.

The airline finally got permission from the Indian authorities to re-start operations on the Thiruvananthapuram route following two weeks of negotiations.

Around a dozen flights were affected and chief executive officer Richard Nuttall earlier revealed the dispute had cost around $500 million.

"This is good news and flights will resume tomorrow," he said."First of all, I would like to apologise to the customers for any inconvenience and secondly, thank the authorities involved in sorting out the matter for co-operating with us.

"Everything will be back to normal and customers with queries can call our customer service number for more details."

Managing director Captain Ibrahim Abdulla Al Hamer thanked everyone who helped resolve the issue.

"We would like to extend our heartiest gratitude to all the officials from Bahrain and India, who were involved with their honest efforts for making Bahrain Air resume its operations to Thiruvananthapuram," he said.

The problem came after the airline's contract with the Indian Civil Aviation Affairs Ministry expired on March 24.

A delegation from the carrier and Bahrain's Civil Aviation Affairs earlier flew to India to resolve the issue. – TradeArabia News Service