Eidi: Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority reopens their airspace to Indian Flights on the occasion of Eid

NEW DELHI: At midnight on Monday-Tuesday, the IndiGo flight operations centre at IGI Airport had received a call soon after the Dubai-Delhi airlines flight had landed here via Pakistan Airspace.

Director of Pakistan civil aviation authority (CAA), had made the call. "Janaab, aap abhi tak jag rahe hain (Sir, you are still awake!), the IndiGo duty officer who received the CAA director's call told him. 'I was monitoring the flight. It has landed safely. Aap Ko zuban di thi (We had given you a word). Eid Mubarak', the Pakistan CAA director said to our person," said a senior IndiGo official.

On Sunday, at Telem the first land point was opened, from where the aircraft had to fly in from Pakistan to India. The first aircraft to use this route was Etihad's Abu Dhabi-Delhi at 5.34 PM (India time), four minutes after it was opened.

An Indigo official had said, "Pakistan suggested it would be better if we first operate one flight as a test case via Telem before routing more flights via that sector. Accordingly, the Dubai-Delhi flight (6E-24) of Monday was planned to take this route."

"Karachi, this is I Fly (IndiGo's technical call sign for operations) 24 at flight level so and so. They responded, saying 'acknowledged'. This meant we were cleared to enter Pakistan airspace," said the official..

"We have routed nine flights into Delhi from the west via Telem on Tuesday. On each flight we will save 22 minutes of flying time and 1,100 kg-1,200 kg of fuel," said a senior IndiGo pilot.

On Saturday, all temporary airspace restrictions that have been imposed on the indian airspace after 27th of February were removed by the Indian Air Force. This was one of the first decisions after the Modi government was sworn in for a second term.