ISLAMABAD: The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) on Friday issued a warning to some foreign airlines for “sudden cancellation” of flights to and from Pakistan, causing hardships to passengers.
The airlines had scheduled extra flights and taken bookings to Pakistan, presuming ease of travel restrictions by authorities.
However, they had to cancel them when the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) maintained its travel curbs, to allow 20 per cent of the normal air traffic from all over the world with a few exceptions.
It was not immediately clear from an NCOC statement which airlines have been issued the warning.
The NCOC had on June 27 announced to increase the capacity for only direct international inbound flights from Europe, Canada, the United Kingdom, China and Malaysia to 40pc of the normal volume of passengers from July 1.
However, some international airlines cancelled flights to Pakistan without prior intimation to the CAA, prompting the authority to take notice and issue warnings to them. Passengers irked by the flight cancellations had also taken to social media to vent their anger on the issue.
Meanwhile, an official of Qatar Airways told media that some of its flights had been cancelled to comply with the NCOC’s restrictions on capacity.–Agencies
