ISLAMABAD, (DNA) – Pakistan airspace remained closed Thursday morning local time as the country’s increasingly fraught tensions with India disrupted thousands of flights worldwide for the second straight day.All international and domestic commercial flights in and out of Pakistan were canceled “until further notice,” Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority told.Thousands of people were also stranded by affected airlines that not only land in Pakistan, but fly over its airspace — one of the major routes from Southeast Asia into Europe.
Thai Airways announced that all its European routes “departing near midnight of 27 FEB through early 28 FEB” were canceled “due to sudden closure of Pakistani airspace as a result of tension between India and Pakistan.”
On Thursday morning, there were no Thai Airways flights between Bangkok and London, Munich, Paris, Brussels, Milan, Vienna, Stockholm, Zurich, Copenhagen and Oslo, the airline said in a statement.
By lunchtime Thai Airways had resumed “normal flight operations” to Europe “through airspace outside Pakistan’s,” the airline said. Thai Airways flights to Pakistan remain canceled, however.
Other airlines diverted or re-routed their flights and some had to make stops to take on extra fuel to complete extended journeys that avoided Pakistan airspace.
Singapore Airlines announced that some of its flights from Singapore to London would have to stop in either Dubai or Mumbai to refuel.
A map of flight paths in and out of Pakistan posted on Twitter by flight tracking company Flightradar24 on Wednesday showed all flights had stopped.
A number of Indian airlines announced the suspension of flights to several Indian airports on Wednesday, though services later resumed.
Aviation analyst Geoffrey Thomas said the route disruption was likely to cost airlines millions of dollars.
“It’s major corridor and this is a serious disruption as all traffic has been pushed much further south over the top of the Arabian gulf,” Thomas said. “You can’t go further north as you are then flying over the Himalayas — and you can’t do that. You’re locked into this corridor.”
