Flights schedule still disrupted at Karachi airport

Delays and cancellations due to fog, claim authorities

KARACHI: Flight operations at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi were disrupted for the third day on Sunday, as around five flights were not able to take off at their scheduled time.

According to the website of the Civil Aviation Agency (CAA), Air Blue flight number PA-200, which was scheduled to fly to Islamabad at 8pm was delayed for more than one-and-a-half hours, while another Air Blue flight, PA-400, scheduled to fly to Lahore at 8pm, was cancelled.



Some Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flights were also delayed or cancelled. PK-521, which was scheduled to fly to Dalbadin, Balochistan at 8:15pm, was cancelled and PK-590 scheduled to fly to Sukkur at 10am was delayed and took off after five hours at 3:30pm while PK-787 scheduled to fly to London at 11:20am was also delayed for several hours and later took off at 4:20pm.



According to CAA sources, the main reason for the flight delay is fog in central parts of the country. Though Karachi did not experience much fog, other parts of the country were engulfed in fog, which is why flights were delayed from Karachi as the desired landing spot was not clear for the planes' arrival.



PIA spokesperson Danyal Gillani also claimed that fog was the cause of the disrupted flight operations.

As for the delay in the flight to London, he said that it was due to a technical fault.

Flights have been delayed and cancelled at the airport for the past three days. More than a dozen flights were delayed on Friday.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 2^nd, 2017.