Karachi: Pakistan suffered a whopping USD 50 million loss after it closed its airspace with India for nearly five months following the Balakot air strikes in February. This information was given by Pakistan’s aviation minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan. However, he asserted that Islamabad’s action hit New Delhi ‘harder’.
Pakistan fully closed its airspace February 26 and kept the ban in place along its eastern border with India for nearly five months, leading to increased flight time for passengers and huge fuel costs to airlines. The country opened its airspace for all civilian traffic Tuesday early morning.
Khan said Thursday that the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) suffered a loss of Rs 8.5 billion (USD 50 million) because of airspace restrictions since February in the wake of the ‘Indian aggression’. “It’s a huge loss for our overall (aviation) industry,” he was quoted as saying by the ‘Dawn’ newspaper.
The airspace closure disrupted Indian flights headed west. It also forced Pakistan International Airlines to suspend some of its flights, and effectively closed off major international routes in and out of Islamabad and Lahore.
“But this restriction hit India harder than Pakistan. The loss of India is almost double. But at this juncture detente and harmony are required from both sides,” Khan told reporters at a press conference here.
The lifting of the airspace restrictions, days ahead of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s first visit to the US, would be a major relief to Air India, which suffered a financial loss of over Rs 400 crores as it had to re-route various international flights.
Between February 26 and July 15, Pakistan opened only two routes out of 11 for Indian flights. These two routes passed over southern Pakistan. Hence Air India had to re-route, merge or suspend many of its international flights that connect India with European and US cities.
“The flying time for long-haul flights towards the USA increased by 90 minutes and addition fuel was needed. US-bound flights had to be stopped at Vienna,” an Air India spokesperson had said earlier this week, explaining the effect the airspace closure had on the national carrier. IndiGo, was unable to start direct flights from Delhi to Istanbul due to the closure of the Pakistan airspace.
The low-cost carrier started flying the Delhi-Istanbul route in March. It had to take the longer route over the Arabian Sea and make a stop at Doha in Qatar for refuelling.
PTI