Most airlines said they were monitoring the situation and making contingency plans should it worsen.

Some 15 hours into the crisis, more than 100 other people remained trapped in the Taj Mahal hotel, a 105-year-old city landmark, and at the five-star Trident/Oberoi, surrounded by hundreds of armed commandos and police.

Germany's flagship carrier Lufthansa said that one flight had been on its way to Mumbai on Wednesday at the time of the attacks and was diverted to New Delhi.

'Today there were supposed to be two flights there, from Frankfurt and Munich, and those will not take place. Tomorrow we'll have to see how the situation develops,' a spokesman for Lufthansa said.

But a British Airways spokesman said flights to Mumbai are still operating normally. The group operates two per day from London's Heathrow airport.

Indian airline Jet Airways, which uses Brussels as a hub for a number of routes between India and North America, was still planning to go ahead with its flight to Mumbai this morning, the Brussels office said.

Austrian Airlines, which flies five times a week direct to Mumbai said it is not cancelling flights but will if the situation worsens Scandinavian airline SAS said it only flies to New Delhi and not to Mumbai and has therefore not cancelled any flights to India.

'We only fly to Delhi on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, and at the moment we don't know how it's going to be on Saturday,' said Anders Lindstrom, SAS spokesman.

'We put the passagers' security above everything else, and if there is trouble we will take that decision at that point, but haven't taken a decision yet. As far as I know there haven't been any incidents in New Delhi so far.'

In the Netherlands, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, the Dutch arm of Air France KLM, cancelled a flight to Mumbai, the website of Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport showed. KLM was not immediately available to comment.

Finnair said its next flight to Mumbai was scheduled for Saturday and that it had no plans to cancel it.

In Asia, Australian flag carrier Qantas said it is monitoring the situation and working on contingency plans to add capacity if necessary to help get people out of Mumbai. 'These plans are dependent on the security situation,' a Qantas spokesman said.

Qantas flies three times a week into Mumbai, from Sydney.

Flight cancellations have also hit passengers to Bangkok where two airports were closed by anti-government protests.

A blockade by anti-government protesters at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport, a major Asian air hub, entered its third day on Thursday, causing the cancellation of all flights and stranding thousands of tourists in the Thai capital.

Thailand is offering a naval airbase on the eastern seaboard as an alternative for airlines. -- REUTERS

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