Pakistan shoots in its foot, will lose millions of dollars by taking THIS step against India...

Has Pakistan shot itself in the foot by banning its airspace for Indian airlines? In what may be called the knee-jerk reaction to Indian actions, Islamabad has banned its airspace for all airways with their bases in India. Now all flights originating from India and going to Europe and North America will have to take a detour. Instead of taking the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Turkmenistan route, they will have to Oman-UAE-Saudi Arabia-Azerbaijan-Ukraine route. 

It will take about two hours more and much more fuel. The overall expense will go up and the travelers will end up paying more. At present, flights from cities like Delhi, Amritsar, Jaipur, Lucknow, and Varanasi take longer routes. Instead of flying to Turkmenistan directly over Pakistan, these flights are now taking a longer path over the Arabian Sea.

Pakistan to lose millions of dollars

What about Pakistan? Analysts believe it will hit Pakistan more severely than India. It appears that Islamabad is not ready to take lessons from the past, but the fact remains that it lost more than $100 million as the charge for using the airspace when it resorted to banning it for Indian airways in 2019 after New Delhi carried out the Balakot air attack in the wake of the Pulwama terrorist attack, in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed. 

If media reports are to be believed, about 400 flights were affected every day, causing huge losses to Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and Pakistan International Airlines (PIA). Things will not be much different this time. A Boeing 737 flying over Pakistan would pay about $580 in overflight fees. It could be more for bigger planes. It was estimated that the Islamic nation lost about $232,000 every day. If other charges like landing and parking fees are included, the daily loss went up to around $300,000.

India mulls banning its airspace for Pakistan

India plans to take the retaliatory step of banning its airspace for Pakistani airways. If it happens, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) will have to take a detour to fly to eastern destinations like China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The PIA has more frequent flights to Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Singapore. If reports are to be believed, Islamabad ended up paying $460,000 every day in 2019. The combined daily loss for the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority and the PIA reached about $760,000. 

Will PIA be grounded?

The step of banning Pakistani airspace has come at a time when the government-owned PIA is in dire financial condition. It reported a profit after 21 years after the government wrote off all of its debts so that its balance sheet looks improved and it can attract a buyer. It reported a revenue of Rs. 165 billion and a net profit of Rs. 137 billion in the financial year 2024. The PIA reported an operating profit of Rs 9.3 billion. However, the overall loss reached Rs 112 billion, or $390 million. The government has failed to privatise its white elephant so far because of its massive loss. The financial condition and the chances of its privatization will go further south.