Today a major repatriation flight operation is underway and over 8 flights of Pakistan International Airlines are flying to bring back Pakistani or take stranded citizens of other countries to their home. A special flight from Colombo, Srilanka was operated by Srilankan Airlines to bring 50 stranded Pakistanis via SriLankan Airlines flight UL1185. The flight left Colombo today morning at 0700. There are also several flights coming from UAE to different parts of Pakistan today.

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There is a special flight on its way to Manchester from Islamabad, another special flight on its way to London Heathrow from Lahore. Another special flight is going to Heathrow from Islamabad. A PIA Airbus A320 AP-BLS flew in the morning from Faislabad to Dubai to take passengers and bring passengers back. It’s on its second leg to bring stranded Pakistanis back. Another Airbus A320 AP-BLA of PIA operated special flight from Abu Dhabi. AP-BLU is flying to Dubai from Islamabad and will bring back passengers from there to Islamabad. Airbus A320 AP-BLW is flying between Multan and Dubai for special flights.

PIA’s Boeing 777-200LR AP-BGY is flying to Toronto from Lahore. PIA’s other worldliner AP-BGZ operated flight from Dubai to Karachi. It was diverted to Dubai when it was flying from London to Lahore and then diverted again to Karachi when it was on a flight from Dubai to Lahore. Maybe the diversion was planned.

Earlier government of Pakistan has released a new schedule to bring back stranded Pakistanis. The new flight schedule has flights to different parts of the world from 28 April onwards till May 10. It is also important to mention that the government of Pakistan has extended the international flights suspension till 15 May 2020.

According to the plan following flights will be operated.

Flights on 1st May

Flights on 2nd May

• Khartoum, Sudan to Karachi by PIA
• United Kingdom to Lahore by PIA

Flights on 3rd May

• Doha, Qatar to Multan by Qatar Airways that is open to all passengers from anywhere in the world who can book with Qatar Airways.

Flights on 4th May

Flights on 5 May

• UAE to Lahore by PIA
• Bahrain to Karachi 2 flights by PIA

Flights on 7 May

Flights on 8 May

• UAE to Lahore by PIA

Flights on 9 May

• Doha, Qatar to Karachi by Qatar Airways that is open to all passengers from anywhere in the world who can book with Qatar Airways.

Flights on 10 May

There are no flights planned for 6th May. At the same time, the government of Pakistan has indicated prices for the sectors PIA is operating flights. So according to this fare for UAE to Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar are 1110 AED. UAE to Karachi fares are 81 AED and to Multan 957 AED. Turkey to Pakistan fares is 63000 rupees and Pakistan to Toronto fares are 2,67,000 rupees. Pakistan to UK fares is 1,17,000 rupees while the UK to Pakistan fares is 1,29,000 rupees.

Earlier Pakistan International Airlines said in a press release that it is planning to operate special flights to Algeria, Khartoum, Nairobi, Jeddah, Oman, Zurich, Amsterdam and Turkey. This schedule now confirms the dates of these flights.

PIA is already operating relief flights to London, Birmingham, Manchester, Toronto, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Melbourne, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur since April 03, 2020. In the past few weeks, PIA also went to destinations which were not part of PIA’s regular flight network such as Chengdu in China, Dushanbe in Tajikistan, Tashkent in Uzbekistan, Baku in Azerbaijan, Baghdad in Iraq and Trabzon in Turkey. From this week, PIA will be operating its first-ever flight to Seoul in South Korea and touching the Australian continent by operating to Melbourne.

Spokesperson of PIA has also confirmed that people who have confirmed tickets and could not travel due to flight restrictions will now be re-accommodated on these upcoming flights. In view of that, he has urged all such passengers to immediately contact PIA Call Centre and get their Pakistan Contact numbers registered with them. This will be used in case there are any changes, confirmations or cancellations.