Pakistan suspends all flights

International Desk: Pakistan airspace has been closed due to an escalation in India-Pakistan tensions until further notice.

This has resulted in Qatar Airways flights to Peshawar, Faisalabad, Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Multan and Sialkot being cancelled until further notice, travel alert put out on the airline's website said.

The airline said that the flights to other destinations close to this region may experience delays as they divert around the closed airspace.

Passengers travelling to and from Pakistan or India can check their flight status here. Pakistan closed its airspace Wednesday, the civil aviation authority and the military said, as fears spiked of an all-out conflict with neighbour India.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) tweeted that it "has officially closed its airspace until further notice", while a Pakistani military spokesman said the decision had been taken "due to the environment".

A CAA source told AFP that all airlines had been notified to "suspend their operations in Pakistan until further notice".

Pakistan’s CAA said that all international and domestic flights from the country’s major airports -- including Karachi, Peshawar, Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan and Sialkot airports -- had been suspended for an indefinite period.

The Indian government, for its part, has shut down four airports close to the India-Pakistan borders, local media and officials said.

"Srinagar, Jammu and Leh airports were among five airports closed on Wednesday for civilian air traffic shortly after an IAF [Indian Air Force] jet crashed in Kashmir’s Budgam district," the Press Trust of India, a news agency reported.

Meanwhile, Indian airlines cancelled service to least six cities in northern India on Wednesday and several airports were closed as tensions escalated.

IndiGo, GoAir, Jet Airways and Vistara, said flights to several airports were on hold or temporarily suspended.

The airlines said on Twitter that flights to cities including Amritsar, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Jammu, Leh and Srinagar have been affected due to airspace restrictions or airport closures.

India on Wednesday shut several airports in the northern part of the country.

Source: Agencies


risingbd/Dhaka/Feb 27, 2019/AI