Air travel disruption: Travellers stranded countrywide due to fog

Several flights are cancelled with airlines citing poor visibility as the cause.

KARACHI: Air traffic between various cities remained suspended on Thursday and Friday as airlines cancelled domestic flights, citing dense fog and poor visibility.

Flight cancellation stranded a large number of people and air travellers staged a number of protests against rescheduling at a number of airports.

PIA cancelled five domestic flights on Friday: PK-218 Peshawar-Islamabad, PK-321 Faisalabad-Karachi, PK-287/288 Lahore-Peshawar-Doha-Lahore, PK-283/284 Karachi-Peshawar-Dubai-Karachi and PK-536/537 Karachi-Moenjodaro-Sukkur-Karachi.

The spokesperson for PIA, Mashhood Tajwar, said that the airline has no option but to cancel flights because of poor visibility and heavy fog in various parts of the country. PIA, he said, accommodated passengers returning from Dubai and other Middle East destinations after several of their connecting flights were cancelled on Friday.

Also on Friday, passengers chanted slogans against airlines at the Jinnah International Airport in Karachi. Passengers wanting to travel to Bahawalpur and Multan also faced difficulties because their flights first have to land at Lahore airport, Tajwar added.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 8^th, 2011.