India, Pakistan to Re-Schedule Air Routes

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, December 28, 2001

India, Pakistan to Re-Schedule Air Routes

Pakistan and India closed their air space for commercial flights of each other and now national flag carriers of both countries - Pakistan International Airlines and Air India - will have to reschedule their flights and air routes. All the flights towards the Far East from Pakistan will be disturbed by the closure of the Indian airspace while India may have to suspend or divert all its west-bound flights from New Delhi to the Gulf, European and US destinations, aviation experts said.

"We are watching the situation carefully and will assess the feasibility of every flight," Khurshid Anwar, Chief Operating Officer of PIA, told The News. However despite several attempts to contact the officials of the CAA, o body was available for their reaction.

PIA has been operating five flights for Mumbai and three flights for Delhi from Karachi every week while from Lahore four flights are being operated for Delhi. After the closure of Indian airspace, all these flights will be suspended. About 13 flights are operated by PIA for the destinations located in the Far East overflying India, Burma and Thailand. All these will be disturbed. "Definitely we will reschedule our flight operations," Khurshid said and added that all flights found not feasible would be suspended. PIA is flying twice for Hong Kong in a week and these flights would be re-routed over China, he said.

After the closure of Indian airspace for Pakistani aircraft, PIA has now been forced to use new routes passing over the Arabian Sea to Colombo for the destinations located in Far East, they said. Change of route means extra flying time of more than 50 minutes and consumption of extra fuel worth of thousands of dollars.

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