Pak opens its airspace, closed since Balakot strike: report

New Delhi: Pakistan opened its airspace for all civilian traffic on Tuesday morning, removing the ban on Indian flights that were not allowed to use majority of its airspace since the Balakot air strikes in February, sources told PTI.

The move is expected to give relief to Air India, which had to re-route its international flights due to the closure of Pakistani airspace.

“Pakistan has permitted all airlines to fly through its airspace from around 12:41 am today. Indian airline operators will start using normal routes through Pakistan airspace soon,” the sources told PTI.

Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority issued a notice to airmen (NOTAM) at around 12:41 am, stating that “with immediate effect Pakistan airspace is open for all type of civil traffic on published ATS (air traffic service) routes”.

Pakistan had fully closed its airspace on February 26 after the Indian Air Force (IAF) struck a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist training camp in Balakot in retaliation to the Pulwama attack on February 14.

Since then, the neighbouring country had only opened two routes, both of them passing through the southern region, of the total 11.

The IAF had announced on May 31 that all temporary restrictions imposed on the Indian airspace after the Balakot strike had been removed. However, it did not benefit most commercial airlines and they were waiting for Pakistan to fully open its airspace.

After the air strike, Air India had to re-route, merge or suspend many of its international flights that connect India with European and US cities.

The national carrier lost Rs. 491 crore till July 2 due to the closure of the Pakistani airspace. Private airlines SpiceJet, IndiGo and GoAir lost Rs. 30.73 crore, Rs. 25.1 crore and Rs. 2.1 crore, respectively, according to data presented by Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri in the Rajya Sabha on July 3.

IndiGo, India’s largest airline by domestic market share, was unable to start direct flights from Delhi to Istanbul due to the closure of the Pakistan airspace.

The low-cost carrier started the Delhi-Istanbul flight in March. Till date, this IndiGo flight had to take the longer route over the Arabian Sea and make a stop at Doha in Qatar for refuelling.