PIA to start flights to Libya from Monday

Five flights to Tripoli and one each to Tunisia and Turkey will be operated.

KARACHI:

Pakistan will send its first flight to Tripoli for the evacuation of its citizens stranded in Libya on Monday.

Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) spokesperson Mashood Tajwar told The Express Tribune that the national flag carrier would have sent its aircraft to Libya earlier.

“But the clearance from the Foreign Office only arrived on Friday, according to which, we can begin operating to Libya from March 7,” he said. PIA is expected to bring back around 3,000 Pakistanis stranded in Libya and nearby locations through seven relief flights.

According to a press release, Managing Director PIA Nadeem Khan Yousufzai has ordered five flights to Tripoli, Libya and one each to Djerba, Tunisia and Istanbul, Turkey. The flights will be operated by the airline between March 7 and 11, 2011. Meanwhile, Tajwar said the airline may increase the number of flights to Tripoli depending on the situation on ground.

“If we see that our five flights haven’t evacuated all the Pakistanis stranded in Libya, then we will increase the number of flights,” he said.

Five PIA relief flights (PK 7072) will operate from Karachi to Jeddah and then onwards to Tripoli and back to Karachi (PK7082).

In addition to the five relief flights, PIA will also operate two additional flights to bring back the stranded Pakistanis who have reached Djerba, Tunisia and Istanbul, Turkey.

Flight PK 7592 will operate from Karachi to Jeddah for Djerba and then to Karachi (PK 7602), while flight PK 788 will be re-routed from London to Istanbul then onwards to Karachi and Islamabad.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 5^th, 2011.